Category: Deed Fraud
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$199 Check From “County Deed Records”? Recognize Home Warranty Renewal Scams
Frauds and fakers commonly target homeowners for money. In one of the sleaziest schemes going on at the moment, a home warranty vendor is trying to get homeowners to sign up for its product. What’s worse, the marketing letters don’t look like sales materials. They look like they come from the local recorder of deeds.…
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Heirs, Protect the Seniors in Your Life From Deed Theft
A 91-year-old Floridian recently sent a payment to his insurer. Then the agent called to say the company wouldn’t be able to renew the homeowner’s policy. The deed had been transferred. The home was now legally owned by another person. Some days later, from his bedroom, this shocked and disoriented senior heard three people come…
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New Fraud Fighter: The Good DEED Act
Deed fraud infects cities and counties all over the United States. This kind of fraud involves forging a deed, impersonating someone who holds a title to a home, or falsely authorizing a transfer of real estate ownership. It’s essentially a home-stealing scheme. Now, lawmakers are taking action to make life harder for deed thieves. In…
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Deed Scam Update: Fake Documents Transfer Dead Floridians’ Houses
In Daytona Beach, a suspect has pleaded “not guilty” to organized fraud. The crime involved two homes, stolen by deed fraud, with multiple notaries enlisted as part of the scheme. The Volusia County, Florida suspect faces a first-degree felony charge, punishable by up to 30 years in prison. He is accused of creating fraudulent quitclaim…
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Stealing Houses: A Fast-Growing Crime?
Or just an especially inhuman one? Several recent stories paint a complex picture.
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Deeds Scams Are Ruining Lives
Panic in Detroit Detroit should have had its moratorium on foreclosures a decade ago. Years of overzealous tax foreclosures has brought the city a decade of deed scams with no end in sight. And the wrongdoers are rarely apprehended for wrecking people’s lives.
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The Mansion Snatchers
Once upon a time in 2020, a Texas couple named Maria and Michael bought a $5.75 million-dollar waterside home in Redington Shores, Florida. They had no idea the deed had already been transferred to the Aura Church — by forgery. A forged need carries a fake signature (or several) and a notary stamp. The forger…
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Amid New York City’s Rampant Deed Theft, One Victim Wins
Brooklyn property values are going up. And there are plenty of opportunists looking to steal deeds. In the Bedford-Stuyvesant district of Brooklyn in New York City, Dairus Griffiths just triumphed over those opportunists. In the past decade, Brooklyn has lost many of its Black and Hispanic residents, as gentrification reshapes the district. Serial fraudsters and…
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“Particularly Insidious”: Update on House Theft in Philadelphia
Something strange happened in Philly early in 2014. The late Norman Johnson signed a deed from the grave, transferring a South Philadelphia rowhouse for only $15,000 to Amen Brown. Dawn Presbery, the daughter of the deceased and the home’s real owner, fought for two years to recover the deed. In some cases like this, the…
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Can Hackers Take the Title to Your Home?
Know the Signs. Prevent Identity Fraud. The title to your home is a precious document. It proves that you own your home and that you may borrow money against your home equity. Can internet hackers take it from you? Cybercriminals are highly sophisticated. In 2020, they were able to hack into top cybersecurity firms that…
