Ben Johnson played Trooper Tyree in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. 
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 ...
Maybe the whole system (or title company?) should just add a step to the process...somebody pick up the phone, send a letter, whatever, notifying the home owner that there’s been a deed event and require their authorization for the process to continue.
This isn’t hard and I SHOULDN’T have to sign up and pay for some service to monitor it for me.
I’d also argue that this isn’t going to get fixed so long as the system views it as the fraud being committed against the home owner, leaving them ‘holding the bag’. Everyone else made their money, so they don’t care. IMO, at least if there’s still any kind of mortgage, this is fraud on the lending institutions and they should be held financially accountable. This would change in a heartbeat if they had to pay.
Something in the system needs to change, maybe a new law about process, but either way this is, seemingly, far too easy and should be easy to stop.
Well, I don’t have a clue how to steal a property. Not in my DNA. I can only report what my real estate attorney said. Internet access, according to him, makes it easier to commit the theft. Perhaps the recorded deed provides all the info needed to create a fake deed.
Title Lock is a scam and not the first to be pushed on Hannity’s show.
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/title-lock-insurance-is-a-waste-of-your-money
Ben Johnson played Trooper Tyree in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.
Nope it will never be done and shouldn't be done. First of all, fraudulent deeds are extremely rare. I have never been involved with one in over thirty-five years of real estate law practice. Second, it would be an overwhelming burden to put on local governments. Third, it would significantly delay how long it takes to get documents recorded. It's not the government's job - and shouldn't be - to make sure that every document that comes in for recording is legitimate.
The government would still have immunity because the burden still falls on the notary.
Imagine I'm buying a shopping center. I have a loan commitment for $50m that provides that if I close on or before August 1 the interest rate is 3%, but if I close after August 1 the interest rate is 4%. (It's not unusual to have a loan commitment structured that way.) Everybody goes to the title company and signs all the documents on July 31 and the deed and deed of trust are hand delivered to the recording clerk that day for recording no later than Aug. 1. On August 1 the recording clerk calls and says they can't record that day because they can't verify notary Joe Blow. On August 2 they call back and say that Joe Blow was indeed found in the database and they can now record. That's all great, except that their mistake or incompetence now means I have to pay $500k more a year in interest for the term of the loan. Should the county be responsible to reimburse me for the extra money they have cost me? I think so.
I would get it back from the estate of whomever stole it.
Check with your county tax assessor’s office. Many now have a free sign up for them to notify you if there is action on your property.
That is correct.
Only because the crook can research the deed records from the comfort of his home rather than going to the land records office to do the same thing. The land records could well be an hour's drive from his house. Plus, he loses his anonymity if he's regularly seen at land records.
“simple, Kill the deed thief”
Works for me.
“enabled by inept and lazy public officials”
Also by corrupt officials who are in on the scam or turn a blind eye for $20.
That’s it in a nutshell
Tree, rope. Everyone put on your masks, we are going to put a stop to this sort of crappola.
Thanks. Maybe he has a father by the same name.
Yes, I meant deed
“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.”
Why do you have to sign up? This should be automatic.
I don’t think so, around here you wait at least three business days before calling and if you want a deed walked through, you pay someone to walk the deed through.
As to it being too much trouble to verify that some poor innocent old veteran or something isn’t being put on the street due to a fraudulent deed, well, if it takes so long, what exactly ARE they verifying, is a thing that is going to go through a lot of people’s heads. At some point, in this age when we all have to spend many many unreimbursed hours of our time correcting personal information no-one should have the right to sell to begin with, you could see how ugly that could get.
It isn’t the job of the old people who are living in their houses and are not parties to the transactions in question to bear the burden of fixing this, and that is exactly what Philly is trying to do. Now maybe that will fly in deep blue Philly, maybe, maybe not. But at some point “it isn’t my job” isn’t going to fly.
The notary system basically works on the honor system at this point, and people have gotten sloppy, lazy, and no-one has bothered to bring the system out of the eighteenth century. But just because “we’ve always done it that way!” doesn’t mean there is anything inherently sacred about being backwards and stupid.
Give ‘em a “six pack” like the IRA sometimes gave criminals preying on neighborhoods the IRA operated in.
IRA enforcers would shoot the robbers through both ankles, both knees and both elbows.
If so, (and true) it’s quite effective.
Btw, closing date is the day the document is signed and notarized, not the day it is recorded in the land records. You’ve got your pocket deeds, and a fair amount of business is transacted that way in corporate real estate to say nothing of all the series llcs snd trusts making everyone’s lives interesting. The date of closing is the date of closing, it could have been ten years ago and held onto until a sale of the property and recorded with the new buyers deed, but the date of closing remains the same. Thats where a database of these court certified notaries and the transactions they have authorized could really come in handy. Someone’s got to be keeping track of these folks, one would think, otherwise paying a fee for someone’s John Hancock is just a pointless exercise in private taxation.
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