A Fraudster Drained My Client's Equity — My Case in the Daily Mirror

The Daily Mirror contacted me this week for a piece on impersonation fraud — a growing threat where criminals pose as a trusted party, a solicitor, a bank, even a family member, to trick someone into sending money or handing over access to something valuable. Cybersecurity and property fraud experts across the industry were asked to comment on how it's evolving. I was asked for a mortgage broker's perspective, and I had a case that fit disturbingly well.

The Case I Shared With the Mirror

I was working with a client on an adverse-credit remortgage — someone with a damaged credit history, exactly the kind of case I specialise in. Partway through the assessment, something didn't add up in their credit file.

A fraudster had registered a charge against the property and drained a significant portion of the equity my client had built up — without the client having any idea it had happened. There was no broken window, no obvious sign anything was wrong. Just a hidden charge sitting quietly on the title.

What made this case particularly cruel is exactly what made it findable. My client already had adverse credit, so extra credit footprints on their file didn't immediately stand out to them the way they might to someone with a clean history used to checking every line. It took a specialist going through the file in real detail — which is precisely what an adverse-credit case demands — to spot activity that shouldn't have been there.

Why Adverse Credit Cases Need Closer Scrutiny, Not Less

There's an assumption that a damaged credit file is just noise — defaults, missed payments, the odd CCJ, nothing worth reading closely. In my experience it's the opposite. When a file already has genuine issues on it, that's exactly when a fraudulent entry is most likely to hide in plain sight, dismissed as "more of the same" rather than investigated.

That's part of why I go through every adverse-credit file personally rather than relying purely on an automated pull. The lenders I place these cases with already require manual underwriting — a human actually reading the file rather than a computer applying a blanket score. That same manual scrutiny is what caught this before it went further.

The Bigger Picture

Property and identity fraud is rising, and the experts quoted alongside me in the Mirror piece were clear that AI is making impersonation easier and more convincing than ever — from spoofed emails to fake websites built in minutes. Homeowners who are mortgage-free are often the most exposed, simply because there's no lender routinely checking on the property. But as my case shows, an existing mortgage and an adverse credit file don't make you safe either — they can make fraud easier to miss, not harder.

If something on your credit file looks unfamiliar, or a remortgage or new application has thrown up entries you don't recognise, don't assume it's just another item on an already-imperfect record. Get it looked at properly.

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