Hackney cyber-attack causes collapse of property purchases

A cyber-attack on an east London council has caused property purchases to fall through or be significantly delayed, home buyers have said.

Hackney Council was attacked at the start of October, causing IT problems that have impacted services including the processing of land search requests.

One woman said she missed out on her home purchase because she lacked a land search, costing her £2,000 in fees.

The council said it hoped to offer a partial land search service soon.

The cyber-attack happened nearly eight weeks ago and has continued to have a serious impact on the lives of Hackney residents.

Hackney Council's cabinet member for planning, Guy Nicholson, said it had affected services residents relied on, including having disrupted the ability of the council to process land search requests for those buying property.

Local land searches held by authorities provide prospective buyers with information about potential legal restrictions or conditions that may affect a property.

Such details would include planning decisions, building regulation matters, and conservation and tree preservation orders.

One buyer, who did not want to be named, said her purchase fell through last week, because the solicitors in her chain were unhappy about the lack of land searches attached to the purchase.

As well as missing out on the property she said she had also lost nearly £2,000 in fees.

Another buyer, James Cunningham said he had been renting in Hackney but was looking to buy in the area and had an offer accepted on a flat.

"The end of my rented tenancy lined up perfectly with my estimated completion date, in addition to comfortably falling within the stamp duty holiday," he said.

"Now, even if the sale goes through, I will need to find a short term let, and possibly find the tens of thousands of pounds required to pay stamp duty."

He said his solicitor was "looking into indemnity policies to give the lender so we could potentially proceed without the land search, but given the current climate I am sceptical they will want to do anything non-standard".

Hackney Council said while its key essential services, such as its coronavirus response, remained unaffected, it continued to work with the National Cyber Security Centre and National Crime Agency to restore other services and protect data.

It said it was unlikely the search process would be fully functioning before the end of the stamp duty holiday on 31 March, but it would be offering a partial land search service in the coming weeks by bringing together the elements of the service that have been recovered so far.

The former deputy director of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre, Peter Yapp, said the fact council services had remained offline for so long after the attack suggested a ransom payment to the hackers had not been made.

In February, another local authority - Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council - was hit by a ransomware attack, which cost it more than £10m.