Some people will steal their own mothers’ homes.
In a stunning case of deed fraud, a woman named Wanda donned a wig and pretended to be her own elderly mother, then tried to steal her home in Hillsborough County, Florida. A video recording shows Wanda using the Notarize computer-based notary service, signing a quitclaim deed. She signed her mother’s name to take the deed for herself.
In May 2023, the Tampa police apprehended Wanda on counts of forgery and elder exploitation.
A weird and unusual case, surely? Alas, there are quite a few deed scoundrels alive and well in Florida. The state is among the top three for identity theft, according to the 2022 figures from the Federal Trade Commission.
Life Estate Deeds Can Be Faked, Too
Then there’s James, with a different yet equally creative approach. James concocted a life estate deed to target an elder homeowner’s $345,000 place in West Palm Beach.
James got caught.
Police say he faked dead notaries’ and witnesses’ signatures on the deeds of not just one but two Florida houses. With one of the homes, James went to the recorder of deeds to file a fraudulent enhanced life estate deed.
Parents sometimes give life estates to grown children, as a probate-free way to pass their homes along after death. In contrast to the standard life estate, there’s an enhanced life estate deed (“lady bird deed”), which is similar to a trust. It’s available in Texas, Florida, Michigan, Vermont, and West Virginia. It’s revocable. The homeowner may mortgage or sell the property, or change the beneficiary.
According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, if James had managed to get away with it, the elder’s home would have been snatched from its owner’s adult child.
Now, what’s the story about the other home James stole? Well, it so happens that detectives found James living in Brandon, Florida, in a home that belonged to someone who passed away in 2021. At that time, James and an accomplice created a fake quitclaim deed to make it appear as though the dead owner gave up the home. James then moved in, and was getting ready to sell the place, say investigators.
James was arrested in December 2022, and sent to jail on 19 charges, mostly felonies. The listed crimes include forgery, elder exploitation, fraudulent use of a dead person’s data, and grand theft.
Case of the Mysterious Third Deed Holder
And now, here’s another fabulous Florida filing! NBC2 News recently reported the arrest of a person allegedly attempting to steal a Naples, Florida house by deed fraud. When the Naples couple who owned the home went to sell it, the name of a certain Daniel turned up.
When the couple met with their listing agent, they reviewed the deed of the home they had come to sell. Lo and behold, there was a third name on their home’s deed along with their own. The county records held a quitclaim that they’d supposedly filed, adding that other person to the deed.
Here’s the thing. They’d never given anyone permission to record a claim on their home. And they had no idea who faked their signatures on the quitclaim.
Whodunnit? The Notary!
The bewildered couple called local law enforcement. The solving of a mystery then began.
Daniel, the notary who added himself to the deed by quitclaim, had previously done tax work for the couple. So he had copies of their financial documents and identification cards, investigators say.
By the time he was caught, Daniel had already started a loan application for nearly a million dollars, using the couple’s home as collateral.
And yes, notaries do turn up as culprits in deed theft from time to time. Just last year, Daytona Beach authorities went after multiple notaries for schemes involving deed fraud.
The Weapon? A Quitclaim Deed!
Where there’s deed fraud, it’s common to find a quitclaim deed in the thick of it. While elders and people in financial distress are the typical targets, deed fraud can happen to just about anyone who buys, sells, or owns real estate.
Quitclaiming means transferring a real estate interest to another party, with no warranty given. Anyone who gets a quitclaim deed needs to be aware that there could be clouds on the title which the quitclaim leaves unresolved. But quitclaiming an interest in property is considered normal in certain circumstances. Family members or co-buyers use quitclaims to pass interests in homes from one person to another. In a divorce, one person might leave a home to the other ex-spouse by quitclaiming it. That’s an example of using the quitclaim as a release deed.
Because they don’t require professional title examinations, quitclaim deeds appeal to fraudsters. Quitclaims sometimes turn up when real estate is taken out from under rightful owners, often to be transferred again to some investor who might or might not be in on the scheme.
The result of these nefarious activities on the ordinary homeowner? A monetary mess, and psychological distress.
Deed crimes exploit people at some of the most vulnerable stages of their lives. The perps couldn’t care less about the loved ones of people who have died. And once a deed is fraudulently transferred, it can be very, very difficult to get back. Unless, that is, your state is actively working on protective deed fraud policy to help foil criminals.
Drat! Foiled Again?
Why don’t deed recorders just nip fraudulent filings in the bud? Because deed recorders are supposed to do just that: record deeds. They are not investigators. So, later on, when the matter is discovered in a title search, innocent people learn they’ll face complicated legal actions to try to recover their ownership rights.
That’s why law enforcement agencies are forming teams around Tampa Bay now, and collaborating in the struggle to head off property fraud schemes.
Additionally, some Florida counties are rolling out free alert services to send owners notices when other people record claims on their real estate. The deed recording offices of Pasco, Hillsborough, and Pinellas counties encourage residents to sign up, in their personal names and business names, for the notification services. If a resident gets a deed claim alert, they will know that some sort of document has been filed in the county on their real estate rights.
By that point, though, isn’t the fraud already done? Yes, but the faster a homeowner knows about it, the faster police can be called to investigate, and foil any further criminal action. That can make the difference between confronting the fraud in time to address it, or allowing a deed to be passed along to a new victim or accomplice.
Supporting References
Tyler Watkins for NBC2 News via Waterman Broadcasting of Florida, LLC: Man Arrested for Attempting to Defraud Naples Couple Out of Their Home – Collier County Sheriff’s Office (May 30, 2023).
Emma Uber for the Times Publishing Company via TampaBay.com: Here’s How People in Florida Steal Homes From Older People and the Dead (Jul. 10, 2023).
Deeds.com: The Quitclaim Deed and Fraudulent Real Estate Transactions (Mar. 11, 2019).
And as linked.
Photo credits: Nick Youngson, NYPhotographic.com, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Pix4free; and SHVETS Production, via Pexels.