Posted on 12/04/2015 2:45:41 PM PST by SoFloFreeper
CBS4 News uncovered something every homeowner should know about.
Your home can be stolen from you, with the filing of just one fraudulent documentat the County Clerk's office.
It's a scam that is spreading across South Florida, and three influential leaders are teaming up to stop it.
....Using a fake notary and forged signatures on a quitclaim deed, the individual illegally transfers the ownership of a home to a third-party, a "straw buyer," who in turn sells the home to an unsuspecting real buyer.
The thief then pockets the cash and runs, sometimes getting hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time, after the home is sold.
(Excerpt) Read more at miami.cbslocal.com ...
A similar scam was worked in Washington DC back in November 2008, when a big white house on Pennsylvania Avenue was conned out of the hands of We The People.
Not my problem.
Problem for the buyer.
I’m still in the freakin’ house.
Old scam. In 60s in Chicago, Supreme S&L would sell the same home to 5 or 6 different buyers in the span of 2 weeks. They’d sell to a Black, a Pole, Italian, Hillbilly, Puerto Rican. A hefty down payement from each. Many times one of the buyers would get pissed at the other buyers, rather than Supreme, and set fire to the building. The fire insurance paid off the mortgage held by Supreme.
The insurance company just could not believe that it was a white collar crime. They insisted on continuing to do business with Supreme...because they paid so much premium on all their buildings.
Isn’t that what Title insurance is for? To protect the buyer if the Title isn’t clean.
That will drive up the title insurance costs.
Sloppy practices at the County Clerk offices is the cause of this. The video calls for owners to ‘be aware’. Stupid advice. The homeowner is not responsible for their screwups.
That’s what happened to Linda Cleland. Investigators are trying to find whoever filed a false deed last year, forging her signature. They stole her home and sold it to a legitimate real estate investor. That investor evicted Cleland in April.
“I thought my God, this house is being taken from me,†she told Zea.
Cleland went to the State Attorney’s office and police for help, but while her fraud case was still open, a County Court allowed the new homeowner to force her out. She became homeless. Living on a bench at a church a few blocks from her home for the next seven months.
Last year, we were given the opportunity to sign up with their plan to prevent this.
In short, any transaction involving real property causes the property owner to be notified immediately. We do not have to check anything every day to see what is happening. Any change gets an immediate email notice.
We are also blessed with a top notch sheriff.
I would say you are blessed indeed. Email notification is a great idea for those who are on the Internet (and many still are not), some say the Internet will be the death of us all, I view it as I view sex:
It can be a wonderful servant, OR a most terrible master.
If we did not sell our home to anyone, they cannot take possession of it. Period! How can they sell a home without showing it? A title search, building the abstract, checking to see if there are loans out against it. Must really be some fools out there to put out thousands of dollars without going through the process.
Wells Fargo and several other banks “foreclosed” on lots of homes they never had a right to foreclose on - most were free and clear.
The lovely people from law enforcement (We’re just doing our jobs and following orders!) used armed force to evict people. Some were even arrested for ‘resisting’.
The criminals from Wall Street then inspired the criminals from Main Street.
But, as usual, none of the Wall Street criminals ever went to jail for their acts of fraud and grand larceny.
Do the clerks not require a signed picture ID for such things?
For any of you homeowners wondering if you should toss and turn tonight, a buyer is a lot more at risk than a homeowner, if the homeowner is at risk at all.
A buyer is put on actual notice by the fact that a home is occupied so that a buyer is deemed liable to find out who the occupants are: renters? Homeowners? Squatters?
The buyers don’t even want to inspect the home? This isn’t a tax sale where you might buy without seeing it.
The buyers aren’t concerned when they see that the home looks `lived in’ and not `fluffed’ by a seller and realtor?
Even if a forged QC deed is filed it still only means that a gullible buyer was taken, not a homeowner. It would be like a pigeon going into the county building and telling the Plan office tht he bought the High street bridge and he wants to put up a toll station so he needs a building permit.
The secretary doesn’t call the county commissioners’ office, frantic, and say, “We got screwed!”
This kind of fraud actually happened in NYC in 1883 when an immigrant kept selling public buildings and landmarks—including Grant’s tomb—to immigrants fresh off the boat, until he was jugged for good.
Are the Florida notaries required to use a notary stamp?
It would seem that the foolish buyer should be out of luck, not the home owner.
What happened to title search?
Very sad stuff like that is allowed to even happen.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/3/21/as_wells_fargo_is_accused_of
If my understanding of the money/RINO structure is correct, the RINO’s are in bed with Wall Street via the US Chamber Of Commerce, the ones pushing RINO’s like Bush. They really do not care who is prez, Hitlery or Bush, as long as the status quo is maintained and they all get their share of the loot. And we have Nero in charge, when the going gets rough, he goes golfing.
Our nation is so corrupt from so many different perspectives it’s like the nation has a swarm of vultures circling overhead, taking turns swooping down to get their chunk of meat before it’s all gone.
If one still has the original deed/paperwork in a safe place, I would say it is more like how one can rob a prospective home buyer...
Yes.... title insurance protects the buyer at the moment of purchase for events that may have happened prior to that moment. It also protects against events associated with the current transaction. For instance... you buy the house and for whatever reason the seller’s mortgage company doesn’t release the lein it previously held... and you never know for 10, 20 whatever years.... until you decide to sell one day. Title insurance protects you in this case as well.
You are correct.
A buyer that did not inspect the property to not only see it but to ascertain the owner is foolish. Where was the title search? The title searcher is the vulnerable party
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