2 Bed Bungalow For Renovation In Nice Village Near Coventry

[spord]

We have our eye on a 2 bed bungalow with a big garden in a nice village near Coventry. Land registry figures show a sale in January 2009 for around £150k. It recently failed to sell at auction with a guide price of over 200k. It needs a LOT of work doing to it (around £100k worth if you include the same extension that many similar houses on the street have). We recently offered the same as the previous sale price - we haven't yet heard back, but the estate agent was rather sniffy until we pointed out the land reg. figures, at which point they stumbled somewhat.

My current thinking is that someone may have inherited the property, under-valued it for tax reasons (but would this show up on land reg. figures?) and is now trying to offload it at a much higher price. The problem for the vendor is the visibility of the land reg figures - I don't think anyone is going to offer much more than the 'sale' price in January.

So - is it not fraudulent to undervalue a property for tax reasons like this (if indeed this is what has happened)?