"I started to feel worried after reading a piece of news published in most of the mass-media. It was about the fictitious sale of houses carried out by a gang of fraudsters that operated throughout the country from Catalonia to Castille and Andalusia.

It was a perfectly organised group with excellent appearance who rented houses having provided all sorts of false identity documentation to official property agents and owners.

As tenants, they verified that the rented property was free of charges through the Land Registry. After that, they duplicated the official title deed and passed themselves off as the real owners.

In this way, when either a bank or any private individual wanting to buy the house wanted to check any information in the Land Registry, the information obtained would correspond to that written in the duplicate title deed.

Once the bank had accepted to finance the purchase, the fraudsters arrived at the notary carrying falsified identity documents and 'signed over' the property to the purchaser.

On challenging the false sale with the Spanish Supreme Court, the vendors were astonished to find that the court ruled in favour of the innocent buyer who had bought in 'good faith' with the sale having been subsequently inscribed in the Land Registry.

The real owners, therefore, nearly always lose their properties."

P.P. - Barcelona

This possibility may sound incredible but it has happened.

In this case there is virtually no protection for innocent owners. If this scenario happened to you, you would almost certainly lose your property and your investment without recourse to compensation.

Sometimes, the Spanish legal system respects the inscription in the Land Registry of the innocent new 'owner', who has bought in good faith, more than the fact that the real owner is a victim of fraud.

If you are planning to rent your property, particularly for longer term lets, how could you be sure that this scenario will not happen to you?