Posted on 07/24/2021 4:44:29 AM PDT by sodpoodle
A Philadelphia man allegedly stole 14 houses around the city using fraudulent deeds, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Tyree Burno, 42, has been arrested and charged with assuming ownership of homes located in West Oak Lane, Logan, Frankford, Cedar Brook, and Mt. Airy neighborhoods, either in his own name or using a series of fake names.
Such fraud is fueled by a white-hot real estate market, said Assistant District Attorney Kimberly Esack, with the office’s Economic Crimes unit.
“Oftentimes, the neighborhoods targeted are ones seen as up-and-coming, where gentrification is prevalent,” she said. The victims, often the elderly, may not have the financial means to fight a protracted legal battle to get back what is legally theirs, continued Esack.
Deed theft is a recurring problem in Philadelphia. In March, five people were charged for taking 10 homes, and in 2019 city officials unveiled a tool called Fraud Guard to crack down on the thefts. City officials continue to urge homeowners to sign up for the program, which alerts you when a document is recorded with your name on it.
Law enforcement first learned of the Burno case when a 71-year-old woman complained that her home had been improperly sold in 2019. From there the case grew, with officials eventually charging him with more than 80 counts of theft and 42 counts of forgery for the taking of 14 homes and two lots, as well as leasing two buildings unlawfully and forging four checks.
(Excerpt) Read more at whyy.org ...
I don't know but I heard an advertisement once while listening to Rush about how they could prevent this is you bought their service. Has to do with fake quit claim deeds.
Helicopter?
Cinder blocks?
A quick sightseeing trip over the ocean?
Title insurance.
I would like to know also. I was browsing one of those websites that tell you the value of your property and it said the home was sold in 2000. Well, I was alarmed for a while until I realized that was the year we paid off the farm and received our deed. We have owned it since ‘89. The owners listed on the site were us and not somebody else. That made me think about some kind of deed fraud protection but I don’t know how or where.
This sort of crime can only occur when you have a larcenous individual enabled by inept and lazy public officials who don’t bother to properly vet deed transfers.
Newt Gingrich is currently doing a commercial for one of these companies.
Is Tyree a black name?
Notify town agencies in Hall of Records by certified mail to alert you when an official document is recorded with your name on it.
This is nothing more the an advertisement for lifelock or some other type of security deal...
It is often easier to steal from poor people than to steal from rich people.
“ This sort of crime can only occur when you have a larcenous individual enabled by inept and lazy public officials who don’t bother to properly vet deed transfers..
Agreed 1000%
What I find unacceptable, is that some criminal fools a bank into giving them a mortgage on property they don’t own, and it’s the real homeowner who is out the money, when they weren’t involved whatsoever. Obviously the banks have better lobbyists that us peons. NO WAY should the homeowner take the hit when a bank lends money to the wrong people. That’s friggen insanity
About ten years ago, someone paid the property taxes on my lake home. It was not me. I notified the county treasurer immediately and then paid them myself. I was properly credited for the payment. I am not sure if it was an error by the county clerk or if someone was trying to claim my property by paying the taxes due (there were no back taxes to be paid).
Title insurance would provide relief only to the purchaser of the stolen home. It would not provide relief to a homeowner who has had his home stolen.
Ultimately, the owner of the stolen home would get the home back, but it would take a potentially costly legal proceeding to do so if someone else had bought it from the crook. I suppose an insurance company could offer home theft protection insurance to cover those costs. The article mentions that Philly has set up a program where you are notified whenever a document containing your name is recorded. That's probably as good a protection as anything. That would give you the ability to clear up title before the crook sells to another person, which makes getting the title cleared up much easier and less costly. Despite the cases mentioned in the article, this is still a very rare thing.
I asked my attorney about deed theft and the prevention services advertised on radio. (We were closing on a home we bought) He said that Mississippi is one of a few states that do not offer internet access to deeds of trust. It’s that access and lax security that makes deed theft a problem in some states.
“The victims, often the elderly, may not have the financial means to fight a protracted legal battle to get back what is legally theirs”
It is outrageous that they have to fight in any way. This should be a slam dunk quick retore. A transaction that was fraudulent should be immediately voided.
The victims should not have to pay a dime to fight protracted civil cases because this should be on the criminal side, prosecuted by the state. The place to stop this would be at the recorder of deeds, when they put the document on record. I think they mostly rely on banks to do the work of verifying that a deal is legit with the mortgages, the deeds themselves are overdue for some sort of verification process imo. People are going to fight that because it will require more paperwork, and more expense. Thats the problem with the world turning into the wild west, you end up choking on red tape.
A hitman would be cheaper than a lawyer, and would not bill additional for court fees or phone calls.
The taxes and upkeep must have been brutal. /sarc
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