Q&A Your legal questions answered.

Send your questions to askdean@people.co.uk

What happened next absolutely stunned them. The men claimed that George had sold them the house in September 2017 and that he had been renting the house since this time.

Naturally the women were immediately suspicious because they knew nothing of this so asked more questions.

At first the men refused to provide any further information claiming they had no obligation to do so. They also stated that they wanted the house cleared out so that they could sell it.

At the family’s request I contacted these characters to find out what was going on.

They immediately put me in

AIT is strange that the retailer gave no receipt or any form of record that would be evidence of your order and the deposit. This is the problem with cash. There is no evidence if things go wrong. You could see if the retailer has CCTV in the area where you gave him the money. But he would have to co-operate, which seems unlikely, judging by his response so far.

Qtouch with a local conveyancing firm they had used for the transaction. On the face of it, this looked like a genuine transaction until you looked at the price.

They had paid £35,000 for a house worth at least £110,000, according to the family.

Also, George had not received any of the money – instead it had sat in an escrow account to be used to pay his rent.

An escrow account is a type of holding account in which funds are accumulated for specific payments. The account holder makes periodic deposits and authorises the bank to withdraw funds to pay for certain fixed obligations.

It was clear to me this was a fraudulent transaction and that most importantly the contract for the house sale was not worth the paper it was written on.

Unusually, this scam story has a good ending. The fraudsters have agreed to sign the relevant papers to reverse the documentation and to put the house firmly back into the family ownership – at the moment George’s estate. Scarily this scam is not that uncommon.