Reported mortgage fraud is up across the board. Cifas data for the first half of 2026 shows identity fraud, false applications and account takeovers all rising, a trend they've called worrying.
There's an old pattern behind news like this: fraud goes up when checks get lazy and volume gets put ahead of verification. It's the predictable cost of a system that treats due diligence as a box to tick on the way to a completion.
In regulated work, one thing holds true: the checks aren't the annoying part of the job, they are the job. The moment you treat verification as friction to be minimised, you've quietly decided that speed matters more than knowing who you're actually dealing with. That decision always gets found out.
Property is heading the way software did years ago. The winners won't be whoever moves fastest, but whoever can prove what they know. Verified identity, verified ownership, verified history. Boring, until the day it's the only thing standing between you and a very expensive mistake.
If you handle other people's money or their homes, real checks aren't the slow part of the job. They're the part that keeps you in it.
Co-founder of Propalt and a property investor and developer for 20 years
