A BOGUS TENANT who faked his landlord’s identity and successfully applied to remortgage the property for £207,495, disappeared without paying a penny of it.

The disturbing story began when the man, who called himself Andrew Manning, rented the property through the Brighton office of Countrywide Residential Lettings. It is thought that he paid £2 to check the property online at the Land Registry, where he discovered who owned it and that there was no existing charge on it.

Grahame Hawthorn, the landlord of the property in Ashford Road, Brighton, had successfully let it out through Countrywide since leaving Britain in 1998 to do charity work abroad.

His brother Adrian said that Countrywide had carried out reference checks, including seeing a driving licence, and the tenant had provided sufficient proof of identity. Countrywide Residential Lettings, a member of ARLA and known for their high standards, preferred not to comment.

Manning paid six months’ rent in advance and a £1,200 deposit, saying that the house was for his sister, a student at Sussex University. However, within a week of signing the tenancy, Manning had used a false driving licence and some stolen utility bills to pose as Grahame Hawthorn and seeking to remortgage his property. This was despite the fact that the deeds to the property were securely locked away in his brother’s home.

Manning’s first application was to Cheltenham & Gloucester, who turned it down after smelling a rat. Manning had asked for a loan of £294,000 and claimed to earn £120,000 a year.

Cheltenham & Gloucester were suspicious and reported their suspicions of a fraudulent application to Adrian Hawthorn who in turn reported it to the police in Kingston-on-Thames, Surrey. He claims the police told him that they were snowed under, and already had 217 cases of ID fraud to investigate. West Sussex police were then alerted.

Meanwhile, before Adrian Hawthorn knew of Cheltenham & Gloucester’s concerns, Manning had made a successful application to lenders GMAC-RFC.

Adrian Hawthorn said that he had not seen a copy of this application, but that he had seen the one made to the Cheltenham & Gloucester: “Both my brother’s first name and surname had been spelled incorrectly and the signature was nothing like his.”

It also transpired that the company that Manning claimed in his application to Cheltenham & Gloucester to be a partner in, was simply an accommodation address.

Fake bank account

After getting his mortgage from GMAC-RFC, Manning opened a fake bank account into which he first paid the money and then withdrew it using a banker’s draft.

Manning - who, like his sister, had never spent a night in the property - disappeared without repaying any of the mortgage.

The lender then placed an abandonment notice on the property. Countrywide Residential Lettings saw this notice and swiftly told Adrian Hawthorn, who did what Manning is thought to have done – visited the Land Registry online, paid £2, and was astonished and horrified to find that a charge of £207,495 had been placed on his brother’s house.

By this time, an asset management company had been hired by the lender. The locks were changed at the end of the abandonment period and two Brighton estate agents were instructed to value the property.

To their credit, the lenders handed back the house on December 10 to Adrian Hawthorn, who by that time was able to give proof that he had been granted his brother’s power of attorney. GMAC-RFC also confirmed that the charge on the property would be lifted and that the process was going through the Land Registry.

Jeff Knight, head of marketing services at GMAC-RFC, said: “Both Mr Hawthorn and GMACRFC have been the unfortunate victims of a very sophisticated and isolated instance of identity fraud. As soon as this became evident, GMAC-RFC put the interests of the Hawthorn family before its own and returned possession of the property, despite the fact that our advance is still outstanding.

“We are still at this time unable to confirm the full facts of this matter due to ongoing legal action and a police investigation. We therefore regret the decision to report on this matter before the full facts can be shared. We would, however, point out that there were material differences between the application made by the fraudster to Cheltenham & Gloucester and the application made to us.

“As one of the world’s largest residential mortgage lenders, GMAC-RFC is committed to responsible lending. This is demonstrated by the fact that our loss ratio in the UK, for example, is seven times better than the UK industry average. When the full facts of this case are revealed, our processes and procedures will be exonerated.

“We have always sympathised with the position in which the Hawthorn brothers have found themselves. We have shared and understood their frustrations during this stressful time. We are glad to have returned the property to them as swiftly as we could and wish them the best for the future.”

West Sussex police said they were investigating and declined to comment further. The Land Registry confirmed that it no longer issues paper title deeds, since the decision was made to have an open register online, which means that any property can be accessed by anyone for £2. It confirmed it was investigating the case. The property itself has been let out again to new tenants.