Official documents were altered to inflate the price of property deals in Aberdeen by hundreds of thousands of pounds, a fraud trial heard yesterday.
The High Court in Glasgow was shown dispositions lodged with the Registers of Scotland containing higher values than those on the original sale documents.
Solicitor Robin Brodie, a partner with Aberdeen Firm Ledingham Chalmers, who negotiated the deal, confirmed that details on the dispositions were different from the drafts he had prepared at the time of the sale.
The drafts for the sale of 32 flats in Rosemount Viaduct put the four sales at £375,000 each. But the final documents with the land register put each sale at £530,000.
Six shops in the same street were sold in three lots for £75,000 each. The dispositions with the land register listed the sales prices at £160,000, £125,000 and £110,000.
The evidence was shown to jurors in a £7million fraud trial in which it is alleged that nine people faked purchase prices and falsified mortgage forms to obtain, money, loans and properties between 1998 and 2003.
The accused are David George Pocock, 48, of 76 Rubislaw Den North; former solicitor Russell Taylor, 43, of 25 Beaconsfield Place; ex-chartered surveyor Alastair Walker, 62, of 27 Springdale Road, Bieldside, all Aberdeen; financial adviser David Ramage, 53, of 37 Hillside Crescent, Westhill; David Mark Pocock, 31, c/o George Mathers & Co, Adelphi, Aberdeen; Frank Pocock, 49, of 34 Robins Grove, Warwick; and Patrick Pocock, 47, of The Steading, Woodside of Cloghill, Kingswells.
Mark Mackie, 42, of 13 Coldstone Avenue, Aberdeen, and Arlyn Cran, 41, of Balbrogie Cottage, Kinellar, are also been accused of being part of the scheme.
All nine deny the changes.
The court heard that on some of the documents in the land register the name of the company to which the property was finally conveyed had been altered. The copies of the land register documents also appeared to show marks where the papers had been stapled together.
When asked to explain the discrepancies on the documents relating to the sale of two shops at 76 and 80 Rosemount Viaduct, Mr Brodie replied: “The first front page has been substituted with a new front.”
The trial before Lord Malcolm continues.
By Tim Pauling
Published: 30/01/2010