From Dreamvar to Digital ID: When Protection Becomes Control
Anyone who’s ever bought or sold a property has probably felt that twinge of frustration when their solicitor asks, yet again, for more ID. Proof of address. Proof of funds. Source of funds. Bank statements. Then, sometimes, the same all over again.
It’s easy to wonder: why all the fuss?
The answer lies in one case that shook the legal profession to its core: Dreamvar (UK) Ltd v Mishcon de Reya and P & P Property Ltd v Owen White & Catlin LLP [2018] EWCA Civ 1082, and in the ever-tightening web of anti-money laundering regulations that followed.
The Case That Changed Everything
Dreamvar was a property fraud that exposed a terrifying flaw in the system. A fraudster posed as the genuine owner of a London home, instructed solicitors, and sold the property to an innocent buyer. When the sale completed, the fraudster vanished with the proceeds, leaving the buyer out of pocket and without the property.
The Court of Appeal had to decide: who should bear the loss, the innocent buyer’s solicitor or the seller’s solicitor, whose client turned out to be a fraudster?
The court ruled that the seller’s solicitor was liable for the loss. Why? Because they were best placed to verify who their client really was. The seller’s conveyancer had a legal duty to be satisfied that the person claiming to sell the property truly owned it.
That single decision changed conveyancing forever. It created a new era of caution, one where law firms could no longer rely on trust alone. Every transaction now required rigorous verification. Every client became a potential risk.
The Digital ID Revolution
Fast-forward a few years, and the pendulum has swung even further. Conveyancers and estate planners now operate in a world of biometric scanning, digital verification apps, and centralised databases. Firms use tools like Credas, Thirdfort, and Onfido to verify identity in seconds.
It’s all part of a system designed to prevent another Dreamvar.
But while technology has made verification faster and safer, it has also raised new questions.
At what point does protection become control? When do anti-money laundering checks, originally meant to stop drug cartels and terrorist financiers, start to feel like surveillance of ordinary citizens?
The Problem with Perfect Protection
Money laundering laws require professionals to trace the origin of funds, to prove that the money being used in a property purchase, investment, or estate transaction is legitimate. In principle, this makes sense. But in practice, most clients are not criminals.
Yet everyone must now prove that they aren’t.
What began as protection against fraud is evolving into a system of constant verification, where every transaction demands disclosure and every honest act must be evidenced.
Digital ID systems, once hailed as a solution, could eventually become tools of centralised control. When identification, property ownership, and financial history are all linked to a single credential, the infrastructure that keeps us safe could also be used to monitor and restrict.
The question isn’t just legal — it’s philosophical.
If the majority of citizens are not criminals, why must we all live as though we are under suspicion?
Trust, Law, and the Imagined Order
The Dreamvar case teaches us that unchecked trust can lead to fraud. But unchecked regulation can lead to something equally dangerous: a society where trust no longer exists at all.
As Yuval Noah Harari might put it, law is part of the “imagined order”, a set of shared fictions that only work because we collectively believe in them. When every human interaction must be proved by paperwork or a facial scan, we stop trusting people and start trusting systems.
A legal system built entirely on suspicion risks eroding the very foundation of justice: human judgment and good faith.
Finding the Balance
The lesson from Dreamvar and the rise of digital ID is that both extremes are dangerous. Without verification, we are vulnerable to fraud. Without restraint, we risk turning protection into control.
The goal must be balance; a world where identity checks protect the innocent without enslaving them to bureaucracy. Where technology serves people, not the other way around.
At Conwy Wills and Trusts, we believe in verification that protects, not surveillance that dehumanises. We verify, we question, and we safeguard, but always with respect for the autonomy and dignity of our clients.
Because protection should never feel like control.
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