Sunday 21 December 2008

Buy to let fraud "hits thousands"

Today's Times reported that "Detectives are investigating one of Britain’s biggest buy-to-let schemes in which large numbers of investors have seen their savings wiped out."

The article itself is a rehash of that old story that buy-to-let is riddled with fraud. However, I thought it interesting that it was top of the Times "most read" internet articles.

I wonder what prompted all that interest?

2 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

What prompted all that interest was because HPC linked to it on a Sunday. I guess.

Nick von Mises said...

There was plenty of humour in the couple who borrowed unbelieveable amounts out of greed, pimped their kids and friends into it and also became agents for the commission.

They were the victims! Oh the humanity.

On a more pedantic note, the article made a big deal about flats being sold for double their "value". Now correct me if I'm wrong but the value is what they sell for. So that means these people were buying therm sight unseen, or at least were total imbeciles.

Even if there was appraisal fraud (almost certainly, though the article was slient), even the most amateurish due diligence (i.e. picking up the local newspaper) would've spotted that.

My sympathy-o-meter failed to register.