A cannabis farm in a home, secret weapons storage in a commercial building or illegal prostitution in an empty office: criminals regularly find their way to buildings via the real estate world. To put a stop to this, the municipalities of Alkmaar, Heiloo, Bergen and Castricum have launched a campaign to expose abuses in the industry.
The campaign aims to make people who work in the sector aware of the criminal activities that can take place in the real estate industry.
“For example, we want to make brokers, appraisers, mortgage advisers and civil-law notaries more resilient. We want them to learn to look at a transaction with different eyes,” says the mayor of Castricum, Toon Mans, on NH Radio† “In addition, it should be easier to report abuses.”
Sold in quick succession
The municipalities will enter into discussions with the parties and want to use examples to show how you can look at a transaction from a different perspective. “What does it mean if a property is sold two or three times in a row? Or if things are offered to the owner of a shed, or the windows are taped?”
Fortunately, according to Mans, a drug lab is not very often broken up in his municipality. “But if we find one, you will hear local residents or the broker say afterwards that they thought it was strange that the owner of the property regularly had a new car. We hope that this will be reported sooner.”