Conveyancing Fraud UK: Spot & Avoid Deposit Scams

Overview

Conveyancing fraud is the umbrella term for scams that target people in the middle of buying or selling property. The classic version is often called 'Friday afternoon fraud', because completions traditionally cluster at the end of the week when firms are busy and time pressure is high.

Criminals typically compromise an email account somewhere in the chain, whether that is the buyer, the seller, the estate agent, or the conveyancer, and they sit quietly reading correspondence until they understand the transaction. At the critical moment, they send a convincing email purporting to come from the conveyancer, stating that bank details have changed and giving a new account number.

The unsuspecting buyer wires their deposit or completion funds straight to the fraudster. Once the money leaves your account and is moved on, recovering it is extremely difficult. Other variants include identity fraud against property owners, bogus conveyancing firms with cloned websites, and fake buyers targeting sellers. The common thread is a high-value transfer between parties who do not know each other well.

Key steps

1. Choose your conveyancer before you find the house. Starting your search for a conveyancer early gives you space to check credentials properly rather than picking the first name the estate agent suggests. Look them up on the Solicitors Regulation Authority register or the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, confirm the firm address matches, and phone the main switchboard to verify the person you have been emailing actually works there.
2. Lock down how bank details will be shared. Agree at the outset that client account details will be provided once, in a secure way, and will never change. Ask for the details in the initial client care pack or via the firm's secure portal, not by a standalone email. Make a note that any later email claiming the account has changed should be treated as a scam until proven otherwise by phone.
3. Verify every payment instruction by voice. Before sending any money, call your conveyancer on the number you have used before or the main number on the firm's website, never a number contained in a recent email. Read the sort code and account number back to them. This single habit defeats the overwhelming majority of conveyancing scams and takes only a couple of minutes.
4. Send a test payment first. For larger transfers, send a small amount first, something like one pound, and confirm by phone that your conveyancer has received it in the correct account before releasing the full sum. Most banks now offer Confirmation of Payee, which flags mismatches between the account name you enter and the name on the receiving account. Pay attention if it warns you.
5. Protect your email and watch for spoofing. Use a strong, unique password for the email address you use for the purchase, and turn on two-factor authentication. Check sender addresses carefully, fraudsters often register domains that differ by a single character from the real firm. If an email feels off, if the tone has changed, if there is sudden urgency, or if attachments look unusual, pause and pick up the phone.

Common questions