ᐅ Attempted Fraud in Land Purchase – Have You Experienced This?

This is a case for the criminal investigation department. Inform your contact person at the local authority and ask them to file a report. In my experience, the police are very reluctant to act on private complaints.

toxicmolotow schrieb:
Exactly.... you say you want to buy the property from the municipality. Who is listed in the land register?

I believe the first sentence is incorrect.

The second sentence is probably the best starting point.

Uwe82 schrieb:
I thought you were buying a plot of land? Here it’s about a finished house. What matters is what is recorded in the land register, that is your seller.

Exactly – that’s why this definitely seems like a fraud attempt. The land is being purchased directly from the municipality...

BeHaElJa schrieb:
Still, I wouldn’t necessarily open PDF files from emails sent by unknown senders.
Is it possible that the municipality is required to publish interested buyers somewhere? I would check with them.

I opened the PDFs cautiously using an image editing program – no scripts can run there.

I already sent an email to the municipality yesterday – but honestly, I can’t imagine it would be legitimate to publicly share any interested buyers anywhere – especially including my private email address.

My suspicion is rather that the municipality’s or notary’s IT system might have been hacked.
Otherwise, how would the sender have such detailed information about the municipality (which is rather small) and the local address...

I assume that once you send a copy of your ID card, it might either be used for identity theft or further “fees” would be demanded by the alleged brokerage agency.

Escroda schrieb:
This is a matter for the criminal investigation department. Inform your contact person at the local authority and ask them to file a report. In my experience, law enforcement agencies are very cautious when it comes to reports filed by private individuals.

Reports filed by private individuals? That is not a term used by the police. The reporter is always a person!
The principle of legality makes no distinction as to whether a company, administration, or private individual is affected.

Please print everything out and report the data theft to the police. Do not file an online report, but go directly in person — sooner rather than later — as data protection laws do not exactly make prosecution easier.

I know that! Wanting to rent out a nice apartment and expecting to get 500 € (about 530 USD) just to send the key for viewing^^ Classic

Are you sure this is about "your" property? I received an identical email (with a different name and property, of course) when I made an inquiry about a listing on Immoscout.
The ID copies probably belong to some unlucky individuals who replied to the initial email with their ID copy...

Lately, there have also been properties listed for sale at bargain prices that were blatantly copied from the "rental" category. They are quickly removed (likely deleted after being reported), but not immediately...