The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go is sound­ing the alarm about what it says is “the in­creas­ing preva­lence of iden­ti­ty theft and the use of fraud­u­lent doc­u­ments by fraud­sters in land trans­ac­tions”.

In a re­lease is­sued to­day, LATT warns that many in­stances of fraud are hap­pen­ing with re­spect to the sale, pur­chase, and mort­gage of res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty.

Cit­ing a a re­cent ju­di­cial de­ci­sion con­cern­ing iden­ti­ty theft in the sale of a prop­er­ty, LATT ex­pressed con­cern at the fact that ex­pe­ri­enced pro­fes­sion­als in the prop­er­ty busi­ness are hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty recog­nis­ing fraud­u­lent ac­tiv­i­ty.

“The lev­el of so­phis­ti­ca­tion em­ployed by fraud­sters is such that in­stances of fraud can eas­i­ly es­cape the scruti­ny of trained and ex­pe­ri­enced re­al es­tate agents, at­tor­neys-at-law and of­fi­cials of fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions,” LATT ex­plained.

“Of­ten, these pro­fes­sion­als may not be able to as­cer­tain the ve­rac­i­ty and au­then­tic­i­ty of doc­u­men­ta­tion per­tain­ing to the iden­ti­ty of par­ties in prop­er­ty trans­ac­tions,” LATT said.

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion is ad­vis­ing all stake­hold­ers and the pub­lic to be aware of and car­ry out their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties with ex­tra care and at­ten­tion, to en­sure the in­ci­dence of fraud is re­duced sub­stan­tial­ly.

“We are there­fore urg­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic and all per­sons in­volved in the buy­ing and sell­ing of prop­er­ty to be vig­i­lant and use all rea­son­able ef­forts to find out the true iden­ti­ty of sell­ers, mort­gagors and their agents,” LATT said.

It added: “Own­ers should al­so take steps to pro­tect their iden­ti­ty and prop­er­ty—es­pe­cial­ly when they (a) do not live on the prop­er­ty be­ing sold or (b) re­side abroad—by not sup­ply­ing any per­son­al in­for­ma­tion or iden­ti­fi­ca­tion doc­u­men­ta­tion to any per­son oth­er than a re­al es­tate agent reg­is­tered with the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit, an at­tor­ney-at-law, or au­tho­rised of­fi­cials of fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions.”

The law body said it is mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion very close­ly.