HOUSE-BUYERS affected by a major revenue fraud are unlikely to have to bear the cost of the counterfeit operation, according to the president of the Institute of Taxation, Mr Brian Bohan.
At least 50 house-buyers, acting through their solicitors, are understood to have paid around £250,000 to a Dublin legal agency believing it was being forwarded to the State as stamp duty payments.
Stamp duty of up to 9 per cent must be paid by buyers of secondhand houses, and some new houses, to the Revenue Commissioners. The duty is paid by purchasing the stamps, which are printed, in ink on the title deeds of the property by the Revenue Commissioners in Dublin.
In some cases, the deeds must then be lodged with the Land Registry, also in Dublin. Solicitors outside Dublin often hire legal agencies to make stamp duty payments for their clients. All home-buyers affected by the fraud were outside Dublin, according to Garda sources.
It is believed the fraudulent law agents took the money for the stamps but did not pay the Revenue. Instead, they printed the counterfeit stamps on the title deeds which means the duty on the properties has not been paid.
The extent of the fraud was discovered after officers from the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation seized £250,000 worth of counterfeit stamp-duty stamps as well as stamp-making equipment from a legal agency in south inner city Dublin on Friday.
The stamps, worth £1,000 to £10,000, were printed on 50 title deeds. The seizure followed the discovery of counterfeit stamps worth £20,000 to £30,000 in the Land Registry within the past month.
Detectives say the operation may have been going on for up to six months and the final cost of it could run to £500,000. Two men were arrested on Friday and later released.
Mr Bohan, who is also a solicitor, said the case was "serious" and "difficult" but the "innocence of the client must be protected".
The legal liability for the fraud was likely to lie "between the errant law agents", he said, and clients would be likely to look to solicitors to pay the stamp duty.
The director general of the Law Society, Mr Ken Murphy, said he could not comment fully on the matter until he examined the facts thoroughly. He said the society's compensation fund provided compensation only for money lost due to the "dishonesty" of a solicitor "which it would appear is not the case here".