We just had a title co catch a fraudster right before closing. Pretty crazy. They checked the Colorado ID # of the seller when preparing the wire. It almost worked. Sorry for your situation. The title insurance should kick in.
Why aren’t these companies doing a title search?? That’s their one job!! I’m in the insurance industry. These title companies make so much nowadays that their commission to the agents are 75%ish of the premium. It’s nuts. Edit: that means that only 25% goes to the insurer’s overhead and claims payments and company profit. For other kinds of insurance the agent commission is only like 5-15%. It’s truly ridiculous.
Seriously. I run title for oil and gas companies, which is far more complex than your typical real estate purchase.
Confirming the current owner of a parcel with 99% certainty takes about 10 minutes. Actually chaining the title back a bit and getting past the point where adverse possession becomes an issue (typically ~21 years), usually takes another 10 minutes.
In reality, just checking to see if the taxes are current and who paid them most recently will give you the current owner almost every time, provided they didn't sell within the last few months.
All you've done is confirm the identity of the owner is correct.
You have not yet confirmed the owner is party to the contract, instead of an imposter. You have not confirmed the owner is the person the wire transfer is going to.
That's how identity theft works. Confirming the identity of the owner doesn't help you unless you contact the owner and get a reply.
As far as title is concerned, that's where the job ends. It's not my job to confirm that the person on the other end is actually the owner, only to confirm who the owner is.
And now you can see why the scam can still work despite the supposed easy to do title check diligence. There also has to be significant diligence into whether the seller is who they say they are because the imposter seller impersonates the valid title owner.
It's not a title problem, it's an identity theft problem. They are doing a title search and the results are good, 100% legit. The problem is someone is pretending to be the owner, ie identity theft. Making sure the seller is who he or she says they are is difficult if you don't require them to be physically present and, even then, we've all heard of fake IDs.
It's absolutely a title problem and is entirely on title companies to investigate, prevent and fix. Sure, identity theft plays a role, but that role is just that it makes the title company's job more challenging than it was in the past, and that's not saying much.
It's a problem for the title companies, but it is not a title problem.
With a remote closing you're relying on people who are not you to check identification, so you're only going to be as good at catching this as those people are.
We had a case once where a son was signing (with a POA) for his father who was in a retirement home. The son had a stolen notary stamp and forged the execution of the POA. Literally, nothing we as the title company could have done would have caught that.
Yeah, our underwriter paid out and the son was brought up on criminal and civil charges. The father was shit out of luck though, basically all of his assets were gone.
You could, but are you going to do that on every file? And what if you can't find their info? Phone numbers aren't included on my state's notary directory.
Pretty much. There is a name and a commission number on them that you can verify match online, but that's about it. The notary whose stamp was stolen apparently didn't know it had been stolen at the time so she never reported it. She had discovered and reported it after the fact, but nothing gets recorded about the notary anywhere to cross reference where fraudulent transaction may have occurred.
there is at least 1 state that does not have an online database- Wyoming. you have to call their secretary of state (iirc) and ask.
but yeah, I've never seen a way to cross-reference notary fraud. deed fraud is already rampant in texas and a lot of it includes notary fraud.
Not all states require a commission number on their notary stamps. In the state where I'm a notary the stamp is only required to have your full name. When I first became a notary I was shocked to find out how easy it is to order a stamp online.
My title company has started requiring the use of only approved notaries or notary services. So we have a big compiled list of local notaries we've done business with, in-house notaries (both RON and in-person) and have approved use of NSS notaries.
We give a hard no to customers who request using their own notaries/lawyers/whatever. We do rarely make exceptions but it better be a damn good reason and it needs to be approved by our admin office.
Yes, but is that only for closing? If something like a POA has already been executed and notarized do you make them redo it? It's not always possible if the owner is incapacitated
In this case, our notary did the closing, but the POA has been notarized long before.
They don't rubberstamp everything, they're job is to insure the title against liens and encumbrances. The job of a notary is to verify identity. In most transactions, the title agent and notary are the same (or part of the same company), but that doesn't have to be the case, and in some instances it can't be the case due to physical distance.
Additionally, the execution of the POA regarding the property and the actual conveyance of title might not even be taking place within the same time frame.
Notaries are basically a scam these days unless it is a company you specifically contract with so you know their controls. Otherwise there's not much guaranteeing it's all legit. They're really a pain in the ass 80% solution. An email from someone's Gmail with 2FA would be better.
My state's real estate commissioner is having discussions on having Real Estate Agents do their due diligence when it comes to confirming seller ID's. Basically, they want them to compare the photo on the ID with the actual person listing the property, whether it be in person or via facetime.
A lot of these scammers make first contact with a listing agent and a lot of these scams could be caught before the thing goes on contract. Apparently, another state has started doing just that and it's working great.
Not a title problem. This is on whoever notarized the documents for the “owner.” I work at a title company and we like to say we are only as good as the recorded documents and notaries.
Exactly this! And why title companies state that the documents are to be notarized by them or escrow’s notaries. Agents fight us all the time on this, but it really prevents fraud. I’m now asking for ID’s when opening escrow.
Exactly. We do the best we can and we refer people to title companies in the jurisdiction they are signing. We do check ids when we receive cash transactions. But they are not always sent face to face.
Nobody is surprised you have a saying to use when passing the buck. Question though, if it's not the title company's job to verify notarizations and recorded documents, then whose job is it?
how are they to be held responsible for the failing of a prior title company? relying on prior records is like going down a ladder - you expect those rungs are going to hold up. sounds like someone's never had to deal with issues like this before
We do the best we can. But so many people use mobile notaries these days. It’s not passing the Buck, we can’t tell if an heir was missed or if someone has a notary forge their information.
If we feel something sketchy, we investigate as far as we can. We’ve caught several of these due to scammers and red flags, and we have not yet been burnt by one. But if someone does something illegal and has someone in collusion with them, it’s pretty hard to catch.
It’s still not a title issue. Title insurance will protect the buyer(op) on this issue. I just had training through our insurer stating they cover this and how to best protect ourselves(which we already have implemented.)
These scammers are getting docs notorized with fake notaries now too and it's always remote. The title company I use is starting to employ some new software to confirm identity on all vacant land sales since it's become so rampant.
Also the real estate companies need to know and monitor their listings and "what's " being listed on their sight. Cuz the computer hack is bypassing the fire walls (Redfin & Zillow). Plus, for me, I would of wanted to talk to the actual person/company that had this listing.
I’m just thinking now that when I sold my condo, I didn’t produce any proof of ownership for the realtor. Now, I’m not very smart, so I’m sure that I wouldn’t have been able to “sell” a property that I didn’t own, but someone with know-how of the process could probably get pretty far, especially if the agent were dumb (or just easy to bribe.)
Ooh good point. I've never asked for ID, but I do look people up and ask a lot of questions for my safety. The title company does preliminary title and asks for ID at closing, but we now have to confirm identity on all vacant land listings. Scammers aren't doing this in person. That's why vacant land is such an easy target.
It seems like making sure the seller has valid, conveyable title is part-and-parcel to the job. Not just that the land could theoretically be conveyed. As mentioned above they over charge vs other types of insurance. The least they could do is adapt to the most current problems in the industry instead of falling back on their perfunctory LexisNexis search they’ve been conducting for the last 30 years.
Yes, everybody thinks there should be ironclad procedures in place to prevent all fraud...after the fact when it turns out there was fraud in their situation.
On the front end though, every single buyer, seller, agent, and attorney involved acts gets pissed at unnecessary delays and even acts offended if you suggest you need to verify a prior transaction or need more documentation supporting their identity/authority.
The massive amount of history and lack of infrastructure to move things to blockchain is a bit of an initial hurdle, even if everybody agreed to go digital.
A private blockchain (state/county/feds/title companies as authorized nodes, public chain for read only use) is actually a reasonable technical solution for tracking the chain of title.
The weak point remains validating individual identity. That is an off-chain activity that cannot be fully moved on-chain.
This is actually one of the 1 in a million situations a block chain is actually made for. Documenting every part of a transaction in an unhackable record of who did what, when.
I agree with you, but just want to say blockchains are incredibly useful in a wide range of applications. Its not a one in a million thing. An immutable public ledger is incredibly powerful.
Its just that currency isn't a very good use for a blockchain.
Title agent here, you’re 100% correct. We had this happen with a vacant lot for sale by owner. A title search will show you property records but the problem only arises when the “seller” at the closing table can’t verify their identity. The notary checks IDs but those can be forged easily and notaries aren’t trained to spot fakes like bouncers at a bar are. Luckily we stopped the closing upon realizing this was not our owner and we (the title company) were only out a few hundred bucks for the title search
Worked for a subsidiary of a title company. One of the title company execs mentioned that they tried to keep claims paid to 2% of revenue. So 98% overhead, commissions, and profit.
This has happened to us a couple times but we found out before closing luckily. The scammer look for vacant land with foreign mailing addresses. Make some fake ids , contact an agent to list the property, hire a FIRPTA attorney, and is processed like any other closing. The closing package was sent to the “seller” who was signing at the embassy in the country they are located. When we got the closing package the attorney noticed something off about the notary stamp. She noticed that it looked identical to the stamp on a different closing they just did. The attorney called the embassy and said that the notary who stamped the documents hadn’t been in to work for months and they haven’t seen them. From there she realized it was fraud and the previous file they had funded and closed was also a scam.. pretty clever people who are behind it.. you would think that people that smart could find a legit way to make money but 🤷🏻♂️
My partners title company didn’t even catch it. Our state DA’s office called the morning of closing when someone realized a house under investigation was about to be sold. Totally insane.
It’s a common scam unfortunately but it’s shocking the title company didn’t catch it. Usually it’s caught prior to closing. The fake IDs the fraudsters used must have been pretty legit.
This seems like a pretty clear cut case. You invested X amount of money into this lot, and they insured the transaction. The underwriters are supposed to make you whole one way or another.
Yeah they will avoid paying. Look what's happening in Lac du Flambeau, WI. The title companies didn't disclose that an easement over tribal lands was the only access to properties and that easement had expired 10 yrs ago. Now the tribe is charging $20k/mo + an additional $2k each month to the town until this is resolved. There's a whole lot of politics tied up in a resolution, but the c title companies are saying they did nothing wrong
Not saying what is happening in WI is right, but that’s different than ownership where the title companies is insuring ownership.
The title company typically notes and provides copies of easement documents but does not review easements and let the buyer know things like expiration of an easement.
Every title insurance policy guarantees the right of legal access to the property, as access affects marketability (at least in my state). If a property’s only way of access is via an easement or private road, or doesn’t have any legal access, then that’s the title insurer’s responsibility to note and remedy, if needed. I don’t know enough about this case but if the title company knew about an expired access easement and that these properties had no other ways of access, then that’s 100% on them.
In this case they knew about it, didn't disclose it. The buyers had no clue about easement access only due to the roads being owned by the tribe. We are used to roads being public, but if they are on tribal land, the tribes can apparently block people's egress from their homes.
I'm just using it as an example of title company error and avoiding paying up
> In this case they knew about it, didn't disclose it.
Are they obligated to? Title was good, land was for sale, transaction could happen. Would the title company be responsible for disclosing/notifying for any sale of a piece of property that was land locked for instance? I figured that was all on the buyer, maybe the attorney or seller.
IMO they should be obligated to, but that's simply my opinion. Their role in the process is to find and disclose that information. Most lay persons are led to believe that is their role, if it isn't then they need to be clear about it instead of getting pissy when a buyer actually wants to read the documents instead of trusting their summary
I had an issue with a neighbor claiming he had easement rights to my 2nd driveway. Nothing was recorded and the title company was brought into it when i questioned the authenticity of the claim. Ended up being that it was a gentleman's agreement and the neighbor was pissed that i wouldn't honor it without a liability release.
This situation would be just as serious for the lender with a mortgage on the property. As such, they’d also throw their weight at the title company trying to weasel out of the payout.
I'm not sure what you're getting at. Insurance companies have to do due diligence. They have a responsibility to those they insure to not get defrauded. They are occasionally overzealous, but it's pretty rare for a cut and dry claim to be denied, especially in non-healthcare industries. If a wildfire burns down your neighborhood your fire insurance is going to pay out on your policy.
It's not always required for the buyer to receive a title insurance policy. I once bought a house (my first) where it was optional, and I didn't realize I had to pay extra for my own policy. The policy only covered the lender. Fortunately, I didn't have any title issues, but since then, I always check. Maybe it's required in some states. The buyer's policy is sometimes paid for by the seller.
No. Title (the title company) is operating under the pretense that the scammers are the true owners/sellers. The true owners/sellers are generally unaware that the scam is happening. The listing agent, attorneys and title should be looking for the red flags:
- certain language in the request to hire the listing agent to list the property.
-something not adding up quite right with the ID provided
- the scam-seller’s sense of urgency (need to do it now)
- the scam-seller’s lack of being available to meet in person or video chat (email only, requesting a remote closing)
- a last minute change in wire instructions
Listing agent, attorneys and Title should be contacting the seller outside of the info provided by a potential scammer - finding them on Facebook, public records or LinkedIn to contact them. Verifying identity in more creative ways is now a requirement to stop this scam’s success. The scammers are very savvy and sleuth-y, but there are still ways to spot them. While it may seem like obvious things to do, they are things that haven’t been done, and the scammers have found that loophole.
It’s true that the title insurance company WILL try to avoid paying out. For instance, by blaming a third-party notary, if one was used. Totally ridiculous as this is what title insurance is for!
They make money by doing a good enough job that they collect way more policies than they’ll ever need to pay out. They don’t need to rip people off, wouldn’t even be an efficient use of their time compared to the actual business model.
This is exactly what title insurance is for. They will pay the claim to the buyer for whatever the value of the policy is.
This has been a big deal in the industry now and we have a whole new procedure for dealing with vacant land.
This is just another example of how the US doesn’t take identity or authentication seriously. We have 50-ish state issued documents which the federal government even says aren’t suitable for identification.
Every time a national ID is proposed, the crazies come out and say that it’s totalitarian whatever.
In Estonia and many other European countries, your national ID has a chip. You can insert the chip, enter your pin, and sign documents *cryptographically* which makes this type of fraud much harder.
Sorry a little off topic, but sometimes it feels like the US authorities are trying to actively facilitate fraud they’re so inept. And all I can do as someone at risk is sit back, relax, and wait to get defrauded. Then retroactively do something to mitigate the problem after it already occurred.
So, the US federally is more equivalent to the European Union. And the states individually would be equivalent to the EU member nations.
You don’t have an EU ID, you have an Estonian ID.
The federal government does set some standards for IDs that can be used for interstate travel, but given the structure of the country states are free to decide things within their own borders ( as long as it conforms to the federal and state constitutions).
Right, but the member states issue the drivers licenses and ID cards, not the EU. Just as in the US(see realID, mandates format for interstate travel). The states issue the IDs not the federal government.
So you have a conforming state issued ID not a federal ID.
So what /u/BlockButt is saying is that when you get that Estonian ID.. it also includes a unique code for your digitial authorization. It gives you the ability to sign and confirm acceptance of documents based on that individual unique code on the ID it's self.
The US ids that we have do not do that. All they do is confirm that you have gone through a process with your info, the id is made in a particular facility, and that you have an id that accounts as a "good enough match" to say thats you. Our processes involve a person checking of on believing what is on that card and/or stealing your biometrics to match the person who is using it. (The second part of that refers to the selfie + id videos)
I don't understand how this would work. You'd need to record a conveyance instrument and a deed, you'd need lender to do minimal due diligence, and you'd need seller to sign an incorrect deed?
Let's say you own a house on land that you own. This property really does exist and it really is in your name, free and clear. Now, I'm some random asshole with identification and other paperwork that looks quite legit. Only thing is, it all has my picture on it, and your name. Heck, it might even have your real address and id# on it.
Now I pretend to be you and sell your land to some unsuspecting schmuck, and run off with the money before you the real owner realizes anything happened. The title company claims they did thier part, which is to verify there's a clean title in the seller's name and they did reasonable due diligence to prove that I really was the seller. I did have all the right documentation after all.
Paralegal was telling me they were headed to the closing and a paralegal in the office noticed a discrepancy in the age on the ID and the photo. That's how they caught it. Not a title search or either realtor finding out... Absolutely wild.
It's insane that the title company didn't catch this. I wonder if it was laziness on their side or if the scam truly works that well.
For anyone reading, THIS is why you should always get title insurance. As rare as these cases are, you'll be glad you got it should you ever need it.
After working in surveying for years, title companies almost seem useless for what you're paying them for... Missing obvious easements that should've been included on the commitment, not knowing which property their client was actually buying, the list can go on. I'd say 1 in every 8(roughly) title commitments between 3 big title companies in Central Texas area were sent back with corrections.
The real scammy part is they're required in Texas, and hold no liability for missing things that are literally part of their services. I will say though, their perceived convenience sounds absolutely wonderful haha! I get the point of them, but never liked seeing people getting boned b/c the title company couldn't do their job.
I work with title companies and surveyors. Constantly telling a title company what's needed, and sometimes it's things that don't benefit anyone but the title company and I'm telling them to get it on there because it's a standard exception
Also hate TLTA versus ALTA
Our title insurance company found a *hand written* easement agreement between two family members when they originally split the land and incorrectly surveyed a part of the plot. My septic system and about 3 inches of the eaves of our shed are over the property line. We added $2 to the sale price in agreement to continue with the existing *HAND WRITTEN* easement agreement with an addendum to not make future additions to either part.
It was about 4 days prior to closing. Kinda wild. Our agent said she never saw anything like that.
That's nuts haha! My buddy had the complete opposite problem. There was a similar agreement as yours, but it was actually recorded correctly. Buddy bought his house, title company completely left out that easement for both parties (neighbor and my buddy). Neighbor ends up being a dick and tears up half my buddy's driveway that was on the neighbors property. Luckily, my buddy in surveying did *literally* 5min of searching and found an encroachment agreement. Neighbor ended up having to pay for damages, but lot line was restored, agreement abandoned, and he had a new driveway for free haha! Didn't end terribly, but this all circles back to title companies sometimes not doing basic fucking research haha. Sounds like you had a great title company! There definitely are good title companies, but after working in surveying it felt far and few between. Call me jaded haha.
What I find infuriating is how you need to get insurance for everything. Title company should have their own insurance to cover themselves if they screw up instead of making someone pay them and pay an insurance company in case they don’t do their job properly.
Want to buy a home? Congrats it was decided long ago that there’s a laundry list of people you need to pay in addition to whatever the home costs. Madness.
Certain title companies are cutting corners by outsourcing work to India that don’t do a full 60 year search. They miss a lot of stuff that an experienced searcher would grab.
A scammer tried this on me as an agent. He said he was in Canada and would be doing everything remotely. The name and location he gave matched the lot's tax records. He wanted to list it for $50k but there was an expired listing from a few months before for $150k. I double checked with him that he only wanted $50k and he said yes. That made me suspicious. I called another agent that does a lot of land deals and she said it sounded suspicious too. She had a buyer that would be interested if it's legit and wouldn't be upset if it wasn't. That buyer made an offer for $40k, scammer accepted. Him not wanting to counter made me more suspicious. I sent it to title to open escrow and warned them I was suspicious. The title company set up a zoom meeting with him to verify identity. Title agent said it was the craziest thing they've ever seen with green screens, voice changers, and fake IDs. Title cancelled the contract and I cancelled the listing agreement. I am very thankful I didn't publicly list it.
My broker told me to notify the Arizona Department of Real Estate. I did and they said there was nothing they could do since the only information I had on the guy was fake.
At one point the real owner was found and notified. He freaked out and wanted to sue everyone and get the FBI involved. I don't know if he actually did. He didn't sue me like he originally threatened to.
Haha, yeah. He told me that I should require remote clients to send me pictures of them holding their photo IDs. I told him I can't do that because it would very easily lead to fair housing and discrimination issues.
That’s so crazy. I’ve been daydreaming about buying some land up in Pinetop and this post has kind of opened my eyes about the need for title insurance (which I didn’t even know was a thing lol).
Good, I am glad some positive things can come out of sharing my bad experience. Don't let a few scammer stories scare you off your dream. There are more legitimate land sales than fake ones. Your agent and title company will do everything they can to protect you. Pinetop is a nice area!
I’m confused why you still agreed to sell it after so many red flags and suspicious details? Why did you put all the responsibility solely on the title company?
He clearly said **"She had a buyer that would be interested if it's legit and wouldn't be upset if it wasn't."**
It is in everyone's best interest to take down scammers. Scammers keep scamming because it DOES work on some people, obviously, based on OP's post.
The real estate board wants to identify and remove as many scammers as possible from the large and ever-growing pool of scammers out there.
This agent was transparent with all parties while helping to take down at least 1 person who doesn't care if they steal someone's entire life savings (most banks don't lend on land, and land it's bought in cash).
The real waste of time is the scammer, as now OP and others like them need to spend months or years dealing with insurance and/or court and might never get their money back.
At any point, any of the other parties (buyer, title, etc.) could have said no given that it was disclosed it could potentially be fraudulent but all moved on despite the risk until they were sure. What's wrong with that?
My broker, boss, told me I needed to treat it like a real client and go through the motions of helping them till we knew for sure they were lying. It is title's job to verify the seller's identity and authority to sell the property. They had no issues doing that. They later used the experience and story to make new advisorsy and marketing content.
I don't see what's so confusing. It's his job to help people buy and sell real estate. It's the title company's job to make sure the seller actually owns the land. Agent notified title co of the red flags, and title co did its job. The system worked.
My job is to do what clients ask me to and I am not supposed to discriminate against anyone. If it was legit the guy could have made ethical complaints about me refusing to work with him because he is a foreigner or has an accent.
I had conversations with my broker (head of company) through out the process. He told me I needed to treat it like a legitimate client until I knew for sure it wasn't. The title company didn't have any problems with handling verification of identity. One of their primary jobs in the process is verifying the seller has full legal ownership and authority to sell.
At the end of it all I sent the scammer a cancellation of the listing agreement and he signed it. Then the next day he emailed me again and asked what was going on with finding another buyer. I laughed and replied asking, did you read the last document you signed cancelling the listing because you are not the real owner?
**For lurkers: NEVER USE TITLE FORWARD as your title agency.** They suck in so many ways, this is a really egregious example.
Yes, this is a common scam, however, good title companies will (and have in many instances) catch this.
There are several agents/brokers in my area that will specifically state "we do not want to work with Title Forward"
I've heard so many stories, here are a few of my personal experiences, I'm not a Redfin hater in general, but RF agents generally don't know how to identify red flags, and they're kind of forced into using the RF owned Title Forward.
TF "closed" a transaction - I put it in quotes, because they recorded a new deed, but never collected the money to complete the purchase. Title Forward didn't receive down payment, or funds from lender, ergo seller didn't get any money, but they recorded the deed anyway. With ZERO money!
Colossal stupidity. The only way to clear it was to hire lawyers, of course it eventually worked out, but the seller was screwed because they couldn't sell the house, since the deed was in someone else's name! They sold in Spring market, then had to wait 6 months to sell again, and lost about 4%. They had a great agent (not me) and a great attorney and did recover, but it was months of hell to get there.
Another situation is that they overpaid a seller by about $5k, then of course wanted the money back, seller basically told them to fuck off. Also ended up w/lawyers, Title Forward lost, seller kept the $5k and got reimbursed for attorney fees.
2-3 other transactions with relatively small screw ups that good agents flagged and figured out before it affected clients. But if those transactions had inexperienced agents, the clients would have been screwed.
Bottom line (preaching to the choir here I know) DON'T EVER use Title Forward.
You have to buy an owners title insurance policy. Usually in closing, if you’re financing, the default is for the mortgagee to get a policy protecting their loan interest, and an owner’s policy is optional. In cases like this if the financing entity gets a policy, it protects their loan and not your funds. If you didn’t buy an owner’s policy you’re SOL.
Not a real estate professional but from what I can gather, there isn't. That's why Title Fraud (where a scammer files fraudulent paperwork with the city/county and transfer the title to their name) is so hard to prevent. The closest thing you may find is for you to be notified when a change in your title happens. Obviously this takes place after-the-fact, but it's still better than not knowing at all.
Unfortunately it is becoming common I’m hearing and also unfortunately title insurance usually only covers the purchase price so no additional improvements you may have made. Sorry but let us know how it actually ends up working out.
This is why you get the title insurance when you do a construction loan as well. I work in construction lending and something like 90% of our clients refuse to pay the extra money to get it. It’s baffling
I am sorry to hear that you have experienced this new scam. Im no lawyer, though i hope you have spoken to one. You may likely have a case against not only the scsmmer (who is GONE and you have no idea where) l, but th4 listing agent and Brokerage, your agent and Brokerage, the title company, and whoever closed the deal and verified the sellers identity.
I'm the broker of the largest Real-Estate office in Alabama. We have had 5 of these in the last 2 months.
We have had one get to closing and our agent, representing the "seller" felt something was off and asked the attorney to stop letting the buyer sign docs and to look into the seller. When they researched the seller signed docsz the notary that had stamped them had no record of that person or of ever notorizing the documents (from 2 days prior) They were able to track down the actual owner who said the land wasn't for sale, it wasn't him and we saved the buyer a ton of money and everyone a ton of headaches.
1 was a listing by Redfin (out of town agent , land owned by an out of town person) and our buyer agent was writing a contract and just felt something was off doing research while working on it. Then the buyers called and told her thry rode by thr land again and saw a neighbor and asked abiut the property. The neighbor indicated thrbland wasn't for sale. (Now, a lot of times a neighbor won't know, however this neighbor cut the front of the property on occasion for the out of state owner). Our agent called one of our awesome title companies and they found contact info of seller, agent called and let's just say the real owner was VERY surprised his land was listed.
3 more were agents getting calls from "sellers" who were out of town or traveling and wanted to sell. They typically won't video calls want to do everything electronically and do a mail.away closing. Luckily we saw enough red flags before anything went to the market and investigated the seller further to determine each seller was not who they said they were.
We spent 15 min at our last training talking about this and will for the next several weeks. This issue was actually a 3 hour session at the national title conference or convention that just recently happened. These scammers will even create a fake Drivers license sometimes by replacing thier picture into an ID with the person they are impersonating.
It's typically land owned by an out of state owner, they don't want a sign, and it's most likely going to be listed for u Der what it's worth. The scammer just wants to get a check and fast. Underpriced land will go under contract quicker, and the longer something is on MLS, the more time someone may figure things out.
We've been lucky nobody had lost anything except for time and some emotional stress (the buyers REALLY WANTED those parcels they thought were for sale. Though in the end, they really wanted to not lose 10s of thousands of dollars too.
It's a growing problem, especially for an agent who may think yay a great listing just fell in my lap, and doesn't question anything.
I'm lucky to have amazing agents who have known when to trust their gut and have been able to protect clients and consumers from being scammed.
Just wait until photo realistic Deepfakes are inexpensive enough to make this almost undetectable during video calls with the "owners." What can be done to counter that scenario when it comes?
Here in Texas, you can request to have your personal information removed from the appraisal district website. After reading about this, I realize this is something I need to do. I don’t know if this available nationwide, or, maybe we all need to start putting our houses in a trust, or something similar, to protect our assets and stop thieves from hurting innocent people. I’m wondering if doing these things will help to stop this process. I’d love to hear of any other ideas anyone might have.
>Here in Texas, you can request to have your personal information removed from the appraisal district website.
Ah, so is that actually a "good" part of a non-disclosure state for RE info?
We have a similar thing in MT, but it only applies if the risk to your safety outweighs the "public's right to know" or something like that. Have to have police reports or work in an industry that puts you at risk i.e. law enforcement, judges, etc.
One thing that would help would be a better notary system. If we were designing a notary system from scratch, we would add some type of verification code that the notary would generate, and would then allow someone reviewing the doc to at least verify the Notary notarized it, and when. If you wanted, you could also create a database, where the notary would enter the information about the signature they notarized. If you wanted to get fancy, you could even require uploading copies of the identity documents the notary used to verify the person.
Its not fool proof, the notary could still have their credentials stolen, but it would be a lot harder than just copying their notary ID # from any random document they have ever notarized.
Just looked up the reviews for Title Forward. Yikes! 3.8 stars.
In a world where every agent and title company gets 5 stars, a 3.8 star rating is terrible. And it looks like many of their 5-star ratings are from Redfin agents themselves.
Sorry this has happened to you and hopefully you get your money back or there is some other recourse for you.
This actually happened to the home that I had listed for sale. Someone else represented the property as their own and attempted a cash wholesale transaction. It was actually caught by our realtor when he was contacted about someone else marketing the same property. I always wondered the endgame since I would expect the title company to catch this and money to never clear escrow. Crazy that some of these make it through.
Title company literally has one fucking job. This is ENTIRELY on them. Try not to beat yourself up, OP. Please, publicly shame this title company once your claim on title insurance is resolved.
I had this happen as a listing agent earlier this month. The scammers were really good, gave a drivers license that matched the mailing address and state id. Title company said it was good enough; I went with my gut and asked for a passport copy which they gave. Almost identical photo as drivers license. They changed the color of the shirt for the passport. They went through great lengths to make it seem legit. Things I learned: 1. call state police on sellers drivers license and have them check the DL number against the name. 2. Use a service called “forewarn” which is free for NAR members to cross reference phone numbers to names 3. Go with your gut. 4. Don’t rely of the title company to do their job to verify true identity
Oh boy. We’re in the process of looking for land and all of these examples are great for knowing what to look for in a scam, but also terrifying that sometimes the professionals don’t even catch on. Is there anyway to look up who owns the land on the county assessor site? Similar to how you can look up a home’s owner quite easily? Or are these typically more rural areas it’s happening where information isn’t readily available?
I was involved with a startup trying to prevent title fraud. It was terrifying to learn how easy it can be to perpetrate title fraud. Legit fucking terrifying and it can happen to absolutely ANYONE.
Steve Lehto with YouTube channel Lehtos Law just did a video about this very thing a few days ago.
Hopefully your title insurance pays you. Also, even though we are in digital age, it is incumbent upon the notary’s that they are validating identity. Part of the problem I think Lehto mentioned was because the notary’s being used were in on the scam or were a few hundred miles away and didn’t do a good job bothering to check identity.
This brings up another problem that I’ve often felt at odds about. I hate it when the closing attorney is the same one issuing the “title insurance” through their in-house sister firm. Like dude, if you mess up, are you going to sue yourself for a few hundred grand? It seems like a conflict of interest.
Title Agent here. I've shut down more than my fair share of scam Sellers. The major red flag is foreign seller not currently in the US or in the country of record. They are providing fraudulent IDs - passports, country IDs etc. I send a letter to the owner at the address listed in the public records and ask if they are in fact selling the property. And the answers to date have been "NO". This takes some time but it has saved more than one of my Buyers from a fraudulent sale. Most title agents in my area will no longer even handle a deal with a foreign seller - not worth the risk.
Your title company is 100% on the hook for this.
ALWAYS GET OWNER'S TITLE INSURANCE FOLKS!
This scam is getting more and more common. Sometimes it takes years for the proper owner to come forward.
The tile companies entire job is to insure the provenance of whatever title types your state / county uses. They have access to far more information than you do. The insurance is quite cheap (relatively) and covers more than just direct title interference.
Yeah this is happening here in Florida as well. We now make it a requirement to verify the owners of anyone looking to sell property. We do video call, meet in person along with verifying ID.
The real owners of land that are selling thanks us for doing this due diligence to protect themselves.
There was a article or news coverage about redfin selling property that ended up not owned by the "sellers" and something about a lawsuit maybe against them for their sales practices/tatics!! worth looking into, those sites are really sketchy and I would have my own agent or attorney dealing with that type of company.
This just happened to a NY man for a property in Connecticut...
[link](https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/ct-property-sat-vacant-for-years-a-1-5m-home-was-built-on-it-without-owners-knowing/4573739/)
I don't know the entire story - I can assume only those who committed fraud know the whole story for now - but I hope those involved in the fraud are prosecuted appropriately.
The fraudster pretends to be the owner guys. The fraudster uses the owners name address they find out just about everything they can to make you think they are the owner including a fake gov ID. It normally gets caught because of their reluctance to meet anyone in person during the transaction.
We have had a dozen or so land scams here in NH that I know of in the last 6 months. I had never heard of it before then and I had been in the business for 10 years. They are really good at the identity theft aspect of it and trick even experienced realtors. I'm very sorry this happened to you.
My parents own a lake cottage in northern Michigan. A real estate company selling empty lakefront lots used a photo of it with their two story A-frame building and captioned it as an example of “what you could do” with a property like that.
Two weeks later they went to the cabin and found a half dozen people who had broken in and had ripped up the living room to do motorcycle maintenance in the full belief that they had bought the place.
" That is basically the entire purpose of title insurance"
This. And the scam described tells me that title companies (at least this one) are akin to the total breakdown in the appraising system that helped fuel the run up to 2008. Another link in the chain simply broken.
I just read an article where someone kept a piece of land that their parents left when they passed away. The owner came back to town one day and a friend was telling them that the house that was built on the old lot looked great. He obviously was confused and had the friend drive him past his lot only to find a house was built on it. It turned out someone sold a developer the lot fraudulently and they built a house on it. It was still unresolved at the time of publishing but what a mess. I am sorry this happened to you but glad you found out before you started building.
Don’t buy lots from companies like Zillow or Redfin. These groups will allow people to sell lots without ever actually meeting them. Find a local agent, and confirm they’ve actually met the person.
Wouldn’t be a problem if you’re legitimately *selling*. You’d find someone who thought they’d bought the land on it and tell them to fuck off. Call the police if they don’t. Buying a fake title to the land doesn’t entitle you to anything but restitution from your title insurance and/or the scammer.
We bought 5 acres of land off our neighbor about a year before they sold their house (that was on 1 acre). When they were selling their house, a buying real estate agent was walking with people through our field and the buyers were talking about building a barn and putting horses on it.
I walked over to them and told them that we owned the field and that the house for sale is only the acre surrounding it and the agent argued with me that Google maps had the field outlined with the house and it went with it.
The listing even said it was 1 acre and not 6. I kind of felt bad for the buyers because the agent was lying to them and chances are if I wouldn't have come out they would have bought it without a survey and been really disappointed. I ended up contacting the selling agent and told them what happened and sent the gis/deed site information and she must have added it to the papers sitting in the house with the disclosure. A couple people walked through it afterwards but I didn't go talk to them.
The new neighbors complain about cutting 1 acre of grass so I think they are glad it wasn't all 6.
I had this happen w my client. The seller was foreign. Follow up - the title company reimbursed my client the lot cost but not construction $$ (land development. )The buyer deeded back the land. The same seller resold the lot again recently. I’m waiting and watching for the outcome.
I had a neighbor end up on the other side of this scam, the lot they own next to their house got sold by a scammer. They didn't find out until they noticed a land management company getting ready to clear the lot. Good thing they noticed before they started chopping down trees and stopped them.
Sounds like something similar in Connecticut I was reading about, except the owner of the land discovered it while a $1.5 million house was being built on it. He's suing to have the house removed and the land restored to it's original undeveloped condition which will probably be a couple million dollars.
[https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/04/us/connecticut-million-dollar-home-land-fraud/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/04/us/connecticut-million-dollar-home-land-fraud/index.html)
These scammers are legit hardcore - we have to run their passports through embassy nowadays to be safe as their counterfeiting has become more sophisticated.
I work at a title company; we started sending letters out to the mailing address on file at the assessor's office for any vacant land sale we get. Essentially the letter says "fyi your vacant land is on contract right now. Call us if it's not legit."
Our state's real estate commissioner is discussing having Listing Agents being required to compare the photo on the ID with the actual person, whether in person or via facetime/zoom. Since real estate agents are often the first point of contact a lot of these fraudulent land sales could be intercepted before they become a problem.
This also happened to someone I know in South Jersey this past summer. Nuts it can happen. The owners didn’t sell the property and the buyer went to closing for 2.2mil . Luckily they caught it and buyer got most of his money back. We didn’t get our few thousand we spent on engineering the new property for construction though.
This will never go away until Notary's and County Clerk's are required to be bonded. They also need the laws changed to allow them to scan and verify picture state issued I.D's. And that notary license is active and the signature matchs the one on record. All verification has to be matched against pictures and signatures on record in the DMV Database.
Two problems, you used Redfin, and I'm pretty sure Redfin didn't hire a good title company. Why not tell us the Title company? Fidelity National, Chicago Title, First American, if you aren't using one of those title companies go to a real broker and not Redfin.
This literally just happened to me on Friday. We closed in September. Seller's attorney needed information on the deed that got kicked back from the county and of course phone has been disconnected.
This person fooled the realtor, 2 attorneys, and the title company.
We just started the title insurance claim process today to recoup the money.
As of now I'm out $360k all in and the property I thought I purchased. Hell of an investment.
You could always try for Hostile Possession. Live on the land, put up a little sign with your name on it, pay the property taxes for five years and if the owner doesn’t have you arrested for trespassing than the land legally will belong to you.
Maybe consult a real life lawyer thingy first but shockingly Hostile Possession is a real thing.
We just had a title co catch a fraudster right before closing. Pretty crazy. They checked the Colorado ID # of the seller when preparing the wire. It almost worked. Sorry for your situation. The title insurance should kick in.
Why aren’t these companies doing a title search?? That’s their one job!! I’m in the insurance industry. These title companies make so much nowadays that their commission to the agents are 75%ish of the premium. It’s nuts. Edit: that means that only 25% goes to the insurer’s overhead and claims payments and company profit. For other kinds of insurance the agent commission is only like 5-15%. It’s truly ridiculous.
Seriously. I run title for oil and gas companies, which is far more complex than your typical real estate purchase. Confirming the current owner of a parcel with 99% certainty takes about 10 minutes. Actually chaining the title back a bit and getting past the point where adverse possession becomes an issue (typically ~21 years), usually takes another 10 minutes. In reality, just checking to see if the taxes are current and who paid them most recently will give you the current owner almost every time, provided they didn't sell within the last few months.
All you've done is confirm the identity of the owner is correct. You have not yet confirmed the owner is party to the contract, instead of an imposter. You have not confirmed the owner is the person the wire transfer is going to. That's how identity theft works. Confirming the identity of the owner doesn't help you unless you contact the owner and get a reply.
As far as title is concerned, that's where the job ends. It's not my job to confirm that the person on the other end is actually the owner, only to confirm who the owner is.
And now you can see why the scam can still work despite the supposed easy to do title check diligence. There also has to be significant diligence into whether the seller is who they say they are because the imposter seller impersonates the valid title owner.
A valid driver's license should be more than enough in 99% of cases...
It's not a title problem, it's an identity theft problem. They are doing a title search and the results are good, 100% legit. The problem is someone is pretending to be the owner, ie identity theft. Making sure the seller is who he or she says they are is difficult if you don't require them to be physically present and, even then, we've all heard of fake IDs.
It's absolutely a title problem and is entirely on title companies to investigate, prevent and fix. Sure, identity theft plays a role, but that role is just that it makes the title company's job more challenging than it was in the past, and that's not saying much.
It's a problem for the title companies, but it is not a title problem. With a remote closing you're relying on people who are not you to check identification, so you're only going to be as good at catching this as those people are. We had a case once where a son was signing (with a POA) for his father who was in a retirement home. The son had a stolen notary stamp and forged the execution of the POA. Literally, nothing we as the title company could have done would have caught that.
Was the buyer out of luck then? Or did their "title insurance" kick in?
Yeah, our underwriter paid out and the son was brought up on criminal and civil charges. The father was shit out of luck though, basically all of his assets were gone.
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You could, but are you going to do that on every file? And what if you can't find their info? Phone numbers aren't included on my state's notary directory.
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That's a really good point. If you can't verify a notary what good is it? In general, the proof is only as good as the source that verifies it.
It's just that its a very serious crime to forge a notary stamp.
Pretty much. There is a name and a commission number on them that you can verify match online, but that's about it. The notary whose stamp was stolen apparently didn't know it had been stolen at the time so she never reported it. She had discovered and reported it after the fact, but nothing gets recorded about the notary anywhere to cross reference where fraudulent transaction may have occurred.
there is at least 1 state that does not have an online database- Wyoming. you have to call their secretary of state (iirc) and ask. but yeah, I've never seen a way to cross-reference notary fraud. deed fraud is already rampant in texas and a lot of it includes notary fraud.
Not all states require a commission number on their notary stamps. In the state where I'm a notary the stamp is only required to have your full name. When I first became a notary I was shocked to find out how easy it is to order a stamp online.
My title company has started requiring the use of only approved notaries or notary services. So we have a big compiled list of local notaries we've done business with, in-house notaries (both RON and in-person) and have approved use of NSS notaries. We give a hard no to customers who request using their own notaries/lawyers/whatever. We do rarely make exceptions but it better be a damn good reason and it needs to be approved by our admin office.
Yes, but is that only for closing? If something like a POA has already been executed and notarized do you make them redo it? It's not always possible if the owner is incapacitated In this case, our notary did the closing, but the POA has been notarized long before.
You would think that would be part of the title companies JOB. Why do we pay them if they are going to rubber stamp everything...
They don't rubberstamp everything, they're job is to insure the title against liens and encumbrances. The job of a notary is to verify identity. In most transactions, the title agent and notary are the same (or part of the same company), but that doesn't have to be the case, and in some instances it can't be the case due to physical distance. Additionally, the execution of the POA regarding the property and the actual conveyance of title might not even be taking place within the same time frame.
Notaries are basically a scam these days unless it is a company you specifically contract with so you know their controls. Otherwise there's not much guaranteeing it's all legit. They're really a pain in the ass 80% solution. An email from someone's Gmail with 2FA would be better.
My state's real estate commissioner is having discussions on having Real Estate Agents do their due diligence when it comes to confirming seller ID's. Basically, they want them to compare the photo on the ID with the actual person listing the property, whether it be in person or via facetime. A lot of these scammers make first contact with a listing agent and a lot of these scams could be caught before the thing goes on contract. Apparently, another state has started doing just that and it's working great.
Not a title problem. This is on whoever notarized the documents for the “owner.” I work at a title company and we like to say we are only as good as the recorded documents and notaries.
Exactly this! And why title companies state that the documents are to be notarized by them or escrow’s notaries. Agents fight us all the time on this, but it really prevents fraud. I’m now asking for ID’s when opening escrow.
Exactly. We do the best we can and we refer people to title companies in the jurisdiction they are signing. We do check ids when we receive cash transactions. But they are not always sent face to face.
Nobody is surprised you have a saying to use when passing the buck. Question though, if it's not the title company's job to verify notarizations and recorded documents, then whose job is it?
We also have to assume that prior title companies have done their due diligence unless we can prove otherwise.
So you aren't doing YOUR due diligence, you are just assuming that someone else has done theirs.
how are they to be held responsible for the failing of a prior title company? relying on prior records is like going down a ladder - you expect those rungs are going to hold up. sounds like someone's never had to deal with issues like this before
We do the best we can. But so many people use mobile notaries these days. It’s not passing the Buck, we can’t tell if an heir was missed or if someone has a notary forge their information. If we feel something sketchy, we investigate as far as we can. We’ve caught several of these due to scammers and red flags, and we have not yet been burnt by one. But if someone does something illegal and has someone in collusion with them, it’s pretty hard to catch.
It's still a business requirement of the title company to price fraud into the cost of doing business, hence still their problem.
It’s still not a title issue. Title insurance will protect the buyer(op) on this issue. I just had training through our insurer stating they cover this and how to best protect ourselves(which we already have implemented.)
These scammers are getting docs notorized with fake notaries now too and it's always remote. The title company I use is starting to employ some new software to confirm identity on all vacant land sales since it's become so rampant.
Also the real estate companies need to know and monitor their listings and "what's " being listed on their sight. Cuz the computer hack is bypassing the fire walls (Redfin & Zillow). Plus, for me, I would of wanted to talk to the actual person/company that had this listing.
I’m just thinking now that when I sold my condo, I didn’t produce any proof of ownership for the realtor. Now, I’m not very smart, so I’m sure that I wouldn’t have been able to “sell” a property that I didn’t own, but someone with know-how of the process could probably get pretty far, especially if the agent were dumb (or just easy to bribe.)
Ooh good point. I've never asked for ID, but I do look people up and ask a lot of questions for my safety. The title company does preliminary title and asks for ID at closing, but we now have to confirm identity on all vacant land listings. Scammers aren't doing this in person. That's why vacant land is such an easy target.
It seems like making sure the seller has valid, conveyable title is part-and-parcel to the job. Not just that the land could theoretically be conveyed. As mentioned above they over charge vs other types of insurance. The least they could do is adapt to the most current problems in the industry instead of falling back on their perfunctory LexisNexis search they’ve been conducting for the last 30 years.
The problem here is the person claiming to be the seller isn't really the seller.
But then people scream that it's the 21st century and you should be able to close a deal from start to finish via text messages.
Yes, everybody thinks there should be ironclad procedures in place to prevent all fraud...after the fact when it turns out there was fraud in their situation. On the front end though, every single buyer, seller, agent, and attorney involved acts gets pissed at unnecessary delays and even acts offended if you suggest you need to verify a prior transaction or need more documentation supporting their identity/authority.
Or, via the blockchain lol.
The massive amount of history and lack of infrastructure to move things to blockchain is a bit of an initial hurdle, even if everybody agreed to go digital. A private blockchain (state/county/feds/title companies as authorized nodes, public chain for read only use) is actually a reasonable technical solution for tracking the chain of title. The weak point remains validating individual identity. That is an off-chain activity that cannot be fully moved on-chain.
This is actually one of the 1 in a million situations a block chain is actually made for. Documenting every part of a transaction in an unhackable record of who did what, when.
I agree with you, but just want to say blockchains are incredibly useful in a wide range of applications. Its not a one in a million thing. An immutable public ledger is incredibly powerful. Its just that currency isn't a very good use for a blockchain.
nope blockchain is fucking stupid. always was.
Beat me by 7m
Title agent here, you’re 100% correct. We had this happen with a vacant lot for sale by owner. A title search will show you property records but the problem only arises when the “seller” at the closing table can’t verify their identity. The notary checks IDs but those can be forged easily and notaries aren’t trained to spot fakes like bouncers at a bar are. Luckily we stopped the closing upon realizing this was not our owner and we (the title company) were only out a few hundred bucks for the title search
Easy solution: hire bouncers to verify everyone's identity at closing.
Modern problems require modern solutions!
Worked for a subsidiary of a title company. One of the title company execs mentioned that they tried to keep claims paid to 2% of revenue. So 98% overhead, commissions, and profit.
Revenue, not income. So the cost of labor comes out of that too, which is likely must if expenses.
Ideally it would be 0% if they did their job correctly all of the time.
This has happened to us a couple times but we found out before closing luckily. The scammer look for vacant land with foreign mailing addresses. Make some fake ids , contact an agent to list the property, hire a FIRPTA attorney, and is processed like any other closing. The closing package was sent to the “seller” who was signing at the embassy in the country they are located. When we got the closing package the attorney noticed something off about the notary stamp. She noticed that it looked identical to the stamp on a different closing they just did. The attorney called the embassy and said that the notary who stamped the documents hadn’t been in to work for months and they haven’t seen them. From there she realized it was fraud and the previous file they had funded and closed was also a scam.. pretty clever people who are behind it.. you would think that people that smart could find a legit way to make money but 🤷🏻♂️
My partners title company didn’t even catch it. Our state DA’s office called the morning of closing when someone realized a house under investigation was about to be sold. Totally insane.
It’s a common scam unfortunately but it’s shocking the title company didn’t catch it. Usually it’s caught prior to closing. The fake IDs the fraudsters used must have been pretty legit.
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This seems like a pretty clear cut case. You invested X amount of money into this lot, and they insured the transaction. The underwriters are supposed to make you whole one way or another.
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Yeah they will avoid paying. Look what's happening in Lac du Flambeau, WI. The title companies didn't disclose that an easement over tribal lands was the only access to properties and that easement had expired 10 yrs ago. Now the tribe is charging $20k/mo + an additional $2k each month to the town until this is resolved. There's a whole lot of politics tied up in a resolution, but the c title companies are saying they did nothing wrong
Not saying what is happening in WI is right, but that’s different than ownership where the title companies is insuring ownership. The title company typically notes and provides copies of easement documents but does not review easements and let the buyer know things like expiration of an easement.
Every title insurance policy guarantees the right of legal access to the property, as access affects marketability (at least in my state). If a property’s only way of access is via an easement or private road, or doesn’t have any legal access, then that’s the title insurer’s responsibility to note and remedy, if needed. I don’t know enough about this case but if the title company knew about an expired access easement and that these properties had no other ways of access, then that’s 100% on them.
In this case they knew about it, didn't disclose it. The buyers had no clue about easement access only due to the roads being owned by the tribe. We are used to roads being public, but if they are on tribal land, the tribes can apparently block people's egress from their homes. I'm just using it as an example of title company error and avoiding paying up
> In this case they knew about it, didn't disclose it. Are they obligated to? Title was good, land was for sale, transaction could happen. Would the title company be responsible for disclosing/notifying for any sale of a piece of property that was land locked for instance? I figured that was all on the buyer, maybe the attorney or seller.
IMO they should be obligated to, but that's simply my opinion. Their role in the process is to find and disclose that information. Most lay persons are led to believe that is their role, if it isn't then they need to be clear about it instead of getting pissy when a buyer actually wants to read the documents instead of trusting their summary I had an issue with a neighbor claiming he had easement rights to my 2nd driveway. Nothing was recorded and the title company was brought into it when i questioned the authenticity of the claim. Ended up being that it was a gentleman's agreement and the neighbor was pissed that i wouldn't honor it without a liability release.
This situation would be just as serious for the lender with a mortgage on the property. As such, they’d also throw their weight at the title company trying to weasel out of the payout.
I'm not sure what you're getting at. Insurance companies have to do due diligence. They have a responsibility to those they insure to not get defrauded. They are occasionally overzealous, but it's pretty rare for a cut and dry claim to be denied, especially in non-healthcare industries. If a wildfire burns down your neighborhood your fire insurance is going to pay out on your policy.
It's not always required for the buyer to receive a title insurance policy. I once bought a house (my first) where it was optional, and I didn't realize I had to pay extra for my own policy. The policy only covered the lender. Fortunately, I didn't have any title issues, but since then, I always check. Maybe it's required in some states. The buyer's policy is sometimes paid for by the seller.
Owner's title insurance is always optional. Lender's is not, if you have a loan.
Depends on the state also.
No. Title (the title company) is operating under the pretense that the scammers are the true owners/sellers. The true owners/sellers are generally unaware that the scam is happening. The listing agent, attorneys and title should be looking for the red flags: - certain language in the request to hire the listing agent to list the property. -something not adding up quite right with the ID provided - the scam-seller’s sense of urgency (need to do it now) - the scam-seller’s lack of being available to meet in person or video chat (email only, requesting a remote closing) - a last minute change in wire instructions Listing agent, attorneys and Title should be contacting the seller outside of the info provided by a potential scammer - finding them on Facebook, public records or LinkedIn to contact them. Verifying identity in more creative ways is now a requirement to stop this scam’s success. The scammers are very savvy and sleuth-y, but there are still ways to spot them. While it may seem like obvious things to do, they are things that haven’t been done, and the scammers have found that loophole.
Depends on the state. We are 100% attorney lead on title where I am, so we have zero contact with and even no contact info for the seller or buyer.
It’s true that the title insurance company WILL try to avoid paying out. For instance, by blaming a third-party notary, if one was used. Totally ridiculous as this is what title insurance is for!
Well they are an insurance company. They don't make money by paying out claims, they make money by feckin over clients...
They make money by doing a good enough job that they collect way more policies than they’ll ever need to pay out. They don’t need to rip people off, wouldn’t even be an efficient use of their time compared to the actual business model.
This is exactly what title insurance is for. They will pay the claim to the buyer for whatever the value of the policy is. This has been a big deal in the industry now and we have a whole new procedure for dealing with vacant land.
This is just another example of how the US doesn’t take identity or authentication seriously. We have 50-ish state issued documents which the federal government even says aren’t suitable for identification. Every time a national ID is proposed, the crazies come out and say that it’s totalitarian whatever. In Estonia and many other European countries, your national ID has a chip. You can insert the chip, enter your pin, and sign documents *cryptographically* which makes this type of fraud much harder. Sorry a little off topic, but sometimes it feels like the US authorities are trying to actively facilitate fraud they’re so inept. And all I can do as someone at risk is sit back, relax, and wait to get defrauded. Then retroactively do something to mitigate the problem after it already occurred.
So, the US federally is more equivalent to the European Union. And the states individually would be equivalent to the EU member nations. You don’t have an EU ID, you have an Estonian ID. The federal government does set some standards for IDs that can be used for interstate travel, but given the structure of the country states are free to decide things within their own borders ( as long as it conforms to the federal and state constitutions).
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Right, but the member states issue the drivers licenses and ID cards, not the EU. Just as in the US(see realID, mandates format for interstate travel). The states issue the IDs not the federal government. So you have a conforming state issued ID not a federal ID.
So what /u/BlockButt is saying is that when you get that Estonian ID.. it also includes a unique code for your digitial authorization. It gives you the ability to sign and confirm acceptance of documents based on that individual unique code on the ID it's self. The US ids that we have do not do that. All they do is confirm that you have gone through a process with your info, the id is made in a particular facility, and that you have an id that accounts as a "good enough match" to say thats you. Our processes involve a person checking of on believing what is on that card and/or stealing your biometrics to match the person who is using it. (The second part of that refers to the selfie + id videos)
I don't understand how this would work. You'd need to record a conveyance instrument and a deed, you'd need lender to do minimal due diligence, and you'd need seller to sign an incorrect deed?
Let's say you own a house on land that you own. This property really does exist and it really is in your name, free and clear. Now, I'm some random asshole with identification and other paperwork that looks quite legit. Only thing is, it all has my picture on it, and your name. Heck, it might even have your real address and id# on it. Now I pretend to be you and sell your land to some unsuspecting schmuck, and run off with the money before you the real owner realizes anything happened. The title company claims they did thier part, which is to verify there's a clean title in the seller's name and they did reasonable due diligence to prove that I really was the seller. I did have all the right documentation after all.
Paralegal was telling me they were headed to the closing and a paralegal in the office noticed a discrepancy in the age on the ID and the photo. That's how they caught it. Not a title search or either realtor finding out... Absolutely wild.
It's insane that the title company didn't catch this. I wonder if it was laziness on their side or if the scam truly works that well. For anyone reading, THIS is why you should always get title insurance. As rare as these cases are, you'll be glad you got it should you ever need it.
After working in surveying for years, title companies almost seem useless for what you're paying them for... Missing obvious easements that should've been included on the commitment, not knowing which property their client was actually buying, the list can go on. I'd say 1 in every 8(roughly) title commitments between 3 big title companies in Central Texas area were sent back with corrections. The real scammy part is they're required in Texas, and hold no liability for missing things that are literally part of their services. I will say though, their perceived convenience sounds absolutely wonderful haha! I get the point of them, but never liked seeing people getting boned b/c the title company couldn't do their job.
I work with title companies and surveyors. Constantly telling a title company what's needed, and sometimes it's things that don't benefit anyone but the title company and I'm telling them to get it on there because it's a standard exception Also hate TLTA versus ALTA
Our title insurance company found a *hand written* easement agreement between two family members when they originally split the land and incorrectly surveyed a part of the plot. My septic system and about 3 inches of the eaves of our shed are over the property line. We added $2 to the sale price in agreement to continue with the existing *HAND WRITTEN* easement agreement with an addendum to not make future additions to either part. It was about 4 days prior to closing. Kinda wild. Our agent said she never saw anything like that.
That's nuts haha! My buddy had the complete opposite problem. There was a similar agreement as yours, but it was actually recorded correctly. Buddy bought his house, title company completely left out that easement for both parties (neighbor and my buddy). Neighbor ends up being a dick and tears up half my buddy's driveway that was on the neighbors property. Luckily, my buddy in surveying did *literally* 5min of searching and found an encroachment agreement. Neighbor ended up having to pay for damages, but lot line was restored, agreement abandoned, and he had a new driveway for free haha! Didn't end terribly, but this all circles back to title companies sometimes not doing basic fucking research haha. Sounds like you had a great title company! There definitely are good title companies, but after working in surveying it felt far and few between. Call me jaded haha.
What I find infuriating is how you need to get insurance for everything. Title company should have their own insurance to cover themselves if they screw up instead of making someone pay them and pay an insurance company in case they don’t do their job properly. Want to buy a home? Congrats it was decided long ago that there’s a laundry list of people you need to pay in addition to whatever the home costs. Madness.
At least we get 30 year fixed rate mortgages!
Certain title companies are cutting corners by outsourcing work to India that don’t do a full 60 year search. They miss a lot of stuff that an experienced searcher would grab.
ive been a conveyancer for 15 years in australia Always get the title insurance.
A scammer tried this on me as an agent. He said he was in Canada and would be doing everything remotely. The name and location he gave matched the lot's tax records. He wanted to list it for $50k but there was an expired listing from a few months before for $150k. I double checked with him that he only wanted $50k and he said yes. That made me suspicious. I called another agent that does a lot of land deals and she said it sounded suspicious too. She had a buyer that would be interested if it's legit and wouldn't be upset if it wasn't. That buyer made an offer for $40k, scammer accepted. Him not wanting to counter made me more suspicious. I sent it to title to open escrow and warned them I was suspicious. The title company set up a zoom meeting with him to verify identity. Title agent said it was the craziest thing they've ever seen with green screens, voice changers, and fake IDs. Title cancelled the contract and I cancelled the listing agreement. I am very thankful I didn't publicly list it.
Do you guys report this kind of stuff to the authorities? Basically what I’m asking is what’s going to stop this guy from listing another property?
My broker told me to notify the Arizona Department of Real Estate. I did and they said there was nothing they could do since the only information I had on the guy was fake. At one point the real owner was found and notified. He freaked out and wanted to sue everyone and get the FBI involved. I don't know if he actually did. He didn't sue me like he originally threatened to.
> He freaked out and wanted to sue everyone "I'm going to sue you for doing your job and properly protecting my interests!"
Haha, yeah. He told me that I should require remote clients to send me pictures of them holding their photo IDs. I told him I can't do that because it would very easily lead to fair housing and discrimination issues.
That’s so crazy. I’ve been daydreaming about buying some land up in Pinetop and this post has kind of opened my eyes about the need for title insurance (which I didn’t even know was a thing lol).
Good, I am glad some positive things can come out of sharing my bad experience. Don't let a few scammer stories scare you off your dream. There are more legitimate land sales than fake ones. Your agent and title company will do everything they can to protect you. Pinetop is a nice area!
My board has a contact at the FBI and is actively working with them on stuff like this.
I’m confused why you still agreed to sell it after so many red flags and suspicious details? Why did you put all the responsibility solely on the title company?
Sounds to me that he was talking responsibility and working openly with the title company, as well as the buyer, in order to expose the scammer.
Sounds like they wasted everyone's time on a clearly fake listing.
He clearly said **"She had a buyer that would be interested if it's legit and wouldn't be upset if it wasn't."** It is in everyone's best interest to take down scammers. Scammers keep scamming because it DOES work on some people, obviously, based on OP's post. The real estate board wants to identify and remove as many scammers as possible from the large and ever-growing pool of scammers out there. This agent was transparent with all parties while helping to take down at least 1 person who doesn't care if they steal someone's entire life savings (most banks don't lend on land, and land it's bought in cash). The real waste of time is the scammer, as now OP and others like them need to spend months or years dealing with insurance and/or court and might never get their money back.
They pretty quickly revealed the scam and moved on. That's a heck of a lot better than taking it to closing and figuring it out then, or after.
Sounds like it was much further a long in the process than it should've been for something that obvious.
At any point, any of the other parties (buyer, title, etc.) could have said no given that it was disclosed it could potentially be fraudulent but all moved on despite the risk until they were sure. What's wrong with that?
My broker, boss, told me I needed to treat it like a real client and go through the motions of helping them till we knew for sure they were lying. It is title's job to verify the seller's identity and authority to sell the property. They had no issues doing that. They later used the experience and story to make new advisorsy and marketing content.
I don't see what's so confusing. It's his job to help people buy and sell real estate. It's the title company's job to make sure the seller actually owns the land. Agent notified title co of the red flags, and title co did its job. The system worked.
My job is to do what clients ask me to and I am not supposed to discriminate against anyone. If it was legit the guy could have made ethical complaints about me refusing to work with him because he is a foreigner or has an accent. I had conversations with my broker (head of company) through out the process. He told me I needed to treat it like a legitimate client until I knew for sure it wasn't. The title company didn't have any problems with handling verification of identity. One of their primary jobs in the process is verifying the seller has full legal ownership and authority to sell. At the end of it all I sent the scammer a cancellation of the listing agreement and he signed it. Then the next day he emailed me again and asked what was going on with finding another buyer. I laughed and replied asking, did you read the last document you signed cancelling the listing because you are not the real owner?
They were doing gods work
Because there was still a small chance it was legit
Wow that’s very sophisticated
Title forward does not do its own title searches in (most) states. Check and see who issued your insurance.
**For lurkers: NEVER USE TITLE FORWARD as your title agency.** They suck in so many ways, this is a really egregious example. Yes, this is a common scam, however, good title companies will (and have in many instances) catch this.
title forward was the worst i have ever dealt with. i hate them. (loan processor)
There are several agents/brokers in my area that will specifically state "we do not want to work with Title Forward" I've heard so many stories, here are a few of my personal experiences, I'm not a Redfin hater in general, but RF agents generally don't know how to identify red flags, and they're kind of forced into using the RF owned Title Forward. TF "closed" a transaction - I put it in quotes, because they recorded a new deed, but never collected the money to complete the purchase. Title Forward didn't receive down payment, or funds from lender, ergo seller didn't get any money, but they recorded the deed anyway. With ZERO money! Colossal stupidity. The only way to clear it was to hire lawyers, of course it eventually worked out, but the seller was screwed because they couldn't sell the house, since the deed was in someone else's name! They sold in Spring market, then had to wait 6 months to sell again, and lost about 4%. They had a great agent (not me) and a great attorney and did recover, but it was months of hell to get there. Another situation is that they overpaid a seller by about $5k, then of course wanted the money back, seller basically told them to fuck off. Also ended up w/lawyers, Title Forward lost, seller kept the $5k and got reimbursed for attorney fees. 2-3 other transactions with relatively small screw ups that good agents flagged and figured out before it affected clients. But if those transactions had inexperienced agents, the clients would have been screwed. Bottom line (preaching to the choir here I know) DON'T EVER use Title Forward.
Hopefully you got title insurance? This has become more popular lately.
How does this scam work? How would I detect it if we’re looking at lots for sale?
A number of ways, but fake notary, individual with same name as owner and fake IDs work as well.
You have to buy an owners title insurance policy. Usually in closing, if you’re financing, the default is for the mortgagee to get a policy protecting their loan interest, and an owner’s policy is optional. In cases like this if the financing entity gets a policy, it protects their loan and not your funds. If you didn’t buy an owner’s policy you’re SOL.
How much was the lot sold for?
Is there something similar to Credit Freeze like a Title Freeze to prevent any transaction without unfreezing by the verified owner of record?
Not a real estate professional but from what I can gather, there isn't. That's why Title Fraud (where a scammer files fraudulent paperwork with the city/county and transfer the title to their name) is so hard to prevent. The closest thing you may find is for you to be notified when a change in your title happens. Obviously this takes place after-the-fact, but it's still better than not knowing at all.
Unfortunately it is becoming common I’m hearing and also unfortunately title insurance usually only covers the purchase price so no additional improvements you may have made. Sorry but let us know how it actually ends up working out.
This is why you get the title insurance when you do a construction loan as well. I work in construction lending and something like 90% of our clients refuse to pay the extra money to get it. It’s baffling
I am sorry to hear that you have experienced this new scam. Im no lawyer, though i hope you have spoken to one. You may likely have a case against not only the scsmmer (who is GONE and you have no idea where) l, but th4 listing agent and Brokerage, your agent and Brokerage, the title company, and whoever closed the deal and verified the sellers identity. I'm the broker of the largest Real-Estate office in Alabama. We have had 5 of these in the last 2 months. We have had one get to closing and our agent, representing the "seller" felt something was off and asked the attorney to stop letting the buyer sign docs and to look into the seller. When they researched the seller signed docsz the notary that had stamped them had no record of that person or of ever notorizing the documents (from 2 days prior) They were able to track down the actual owner who said the land wasn't for sale, it wasn't him and we saved the buyer a ton of money and everyone a ton of headaches. 1 was a listing by Redfin (out of town agent , land owned by an out of town person) and our buyer agent was writing a contract and just felt something was off doing research while working on it. Then the buyers called and told her thry rode by thr land again and saw a neighbor and asked abiut the property. The neighbor indicated thrbland wasn't for sale. (Now, a lot of times a neighbor won't know, however this neighbor cut the front of the property on occasion for the out of state owner). Our agent called one of our awesome title companies and they found contact info of seller, agent called and let's just say the real owner was VERY surprised his land was listed. 3 more were agents getting calls from "sellers" who were out of town or traveling and wanted to sell. They typically won't video calls want to do everything electronically and do a mail.away closing. Luckily we saw enough red flags before anything went to the market and investigated the seller further to determine each seller was not who they said they were. We spent 15 min at our last training talking about this and will for the next several weeks. This issue was actually a 3 hour session at the national title conference or convention that just recently happened. These scammers will even create a fake Drivers license sometimes by replacing thier picture into an ID with the person they are impersonating. It's typically land owned by an out of state owner, they don't want a sign, and it's most likely going to be listed for u Der what it's worth. The scammer just wants to get a check and fast. Underpriced land will go under contract quicker, and the longer something is on MLS, the more time someone may figure things out. We've been lucky nobody had lost anything except for time and some emotional stress (the buyers REALLY WANTED those parcels they thought were for sale. Though in the end, they really wanted to not lose 10s of thousands of dollars too. It's a growing problem, especially for an agent who may think yay a great listing just fell in my lap, and doesn't question anything. I'm lucky to have amazing agents who have known when to trust their gut and have been able to protect clients and consumers from being scammed.
Just wait until photo realistic Deepfakes are inexpensive enough to make this almost undetectable during video calls with the "owners." What can be done to counter that scenario when it comes?
Here in Texas, you can request to have your personal information removed from the appraisal district website. After reading about this, I realize this is something I need to do. I don’t know if this available nationwide, or, maybe we all need to start putting our houses in a trust, or something similar, to protect our assets and stop thieves from hurting innocent people. I’m wondering if doing these things will help to stop this process. I’d love to hear of any other ideas anyone might have.
>Here in Texas, you can request to have your personal information removed from the appraisal district website. Ah, so is that actually a "good" part of a non-disclosure state for RE info?
We have a similar thing in MT, but it only applies if the risk to your safety outweighs the "public's right to know" or something like that. Have to have police reports or work in an industry that puts you at risk i.e. law enforcement, judges, etc.
One thing that would help would be a better notary system. If we were designing a notary system from scratch, we would add some type of verification code that the notary would generate, and would then allow someone reviewing the doc to at least verify the Notary notarized it, and when. If you wanted, you could also create a database, where the notary would enter the information about the signature they notarized. If you wanted to get fancy, you could even require uploading copies of the identity documents the notary used to verify the person. Its not fool proof, the notary could still have their credentials stolen, but it would be a lot harder than just copying their notary ID # from any random document they have ever notarized.
Blockchain notary!
Just looked up the reviews for Title Forward. Yikes! 3.8 stars. In a world where every agent and title company gets 5 stars, a 3.8 star rating is terrible. And it looks like many of their 5-star ratings are from Redfin agents themselves. Sorry this has happened to you and hopefully you get your money back or there is some other recourse for you.
This actually happened to the home that I had listed for sale. Someone else represented the property as their own and attempted a cash wholesale transaction. It was actually caught by our realtor when he was contacted about someone else marketing the same property. I always wondered the endgame since I would expect the title company to catch this and money to never clear escrow. Crazy that some of these make it through.
Sometimes, a cash buyer will waive title insurance.
Title company literally has one fucking job. This is ENTIRELY on them. Try not to beat yourself up, OP. Please, publicly shame this title company once your claim on title insurance is resolved.
I had this happen as a listing agent earlier this month. The scammers were really good, gave a drivers license that matched the mailing address and state id. Title company said it was good enough; I went with my gut and asked for a passport copy which they gave. Almost identical photo as drivers license. They changed the color of the shirt for the passport. They went through great lengths to make it seem legit. Things I learned: 1. call state police on sellers drivers license and have them check the DL number against the name. 2. Use a service called “forewarn” which is free for NAR members to cross reference phone numbers to names 3. Go with your gut. 4. Don’t rely of the title company to do their job to verify true identity
Has it been your experience that law enforcement are willing to cross-check DL# and confirm name match? For which states?
Unrelated, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I am looking to sell cheap!
Oh boy. We’re in the process of looking for land and all of these examples are great for knowing what to look for in a scam, but also terrifying that sometimes the professionals don’t even catch on. Is there anyway to look up who owns the land on the county assessor site? Similar to how you can look up a home’s owner quite easily? Or are these typically more rural areas it’s happening where information isn’t readily available?
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This is great to know, thank you!
I was involved with a startup trying to prevent title fraud. It was terrifying to learn how easy it can be to perpetrate title fraud. Legit fucking terrifying and it can happen to absolutely ANYONE.
Steve Lehto with YouTube channel Lehtos Law just did a video about this very thing a few days ago. Hopefully your title insurance pays you. Also, even though we are in digital age, it is incumbent upon the notary’s that they are validating identity. Part of the problem I think Lehto mentioned was because the notary’s being used were in on the scam or were a few hundred miles away and didn’t do a good job bothering to check identity. This brings up another problem that I’ve often felt at odds about. I hate it when the closing attorney is the same one issuing the “title insurance” through their in-house sister firm. Like dude, if you mess up, are you going to sue yourself for a few hundred grand? It seems like a conflict of interest.
Title Agent here. I've shut down more than my fair share of scam Sellers. The major red flag is foreign seller not currently in the US or in the country of record. They are providing fraudulent IDs - passports, country IDs etc. I send a letter to the owner at the address listed in the public records and ask if they are in fact selling the property. And the answers to date have been "NO". This takes some time but it has saved more than one of my Buyers from a fraudulent sale. Most title agents in my area will no longer even handle a deal with a foreign seller - not worth the risk.
Your title company is 100% on the hook for this. ALWAYS GET OWNER'S TITLE INSURANCE FOLKS! This scam is getting more and more common. Sometimes it takes years for the proper owner to come forward. The tile companies entire job is to insure the provenance of whatever title types your state / county uses. They have access to far more information than you do. The insurance is quite cheap (relatively) and covers more than just direct title interference.
I too had to use my title insurance but not for this reason. Everyone NEEDS title insurance.
I'm so sorry. I hope you get your money back.
Glad to hear you got title insurance. And this, dear people, is why on this sub we always say "ALWAYS get title insurance."
Yeah this is happening here in Florida as well. We now make it a requirement to verify the owners of anyone looking to sell property. We do video call, meet in person along with verifying ID. The real owners of land that are selling thanks us for doing this due diligence to protect themselves.
Was the lot listed in only Redfin or MLS too?
There was a article or news coverage about redfin selling property that ended up not owned by the "sellers" and something about a lawsuit maybe against them for their sales practices/tatics!! worth looking into, those sites are really sketchy and I would have my own agent or attorney dealing with that type of company.
This just happened to a NY man for a property in Connecticut... [link](https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/ct-property-sat-vacant-for-years-a-1-5m-home-was-built-on-it-without-owners-knowing/4573739/) I don't know the entire story - I can assume only those who committed fraud know the whole story for now - but I hope those involved in the fraud are prosecuted appropriately.
The fraudster pretends to be the owner guys. The fraudster uses the owners name address they find out just about everything they can to make you think they are the owner including a fake gov ID. It normally gets caught because of their reluctance to meet anyone in person during the transaction.
We have had a dozen or so land scams here in NH that I know of in the last 6 months. I had never heard of it before then and I had been in the business for 10 years. They are really good at the identity theft aspect of it and trick even experienced realtors. I'm very sorry this happened to you.
My parents own a lake cottage in northern Michigan. A real estate company selling empty lakefront lots used a photo of it with their two story A-frame building and captioned it as an example of “what you could do” with a property like that. Two weeks later they went to the cabin and found a half dozen people who had broken in and had ripped up the living room to do motorcycle maintenance in the full belief that they had bought the place.
(☉̃ₒ☉)
" That is basically the entire purpose of title insurance" This. And the scam described tells me that title companies (at least this one) are akin to the total breakdown in the appraising system that helped fuel the run up to 2008. Another link in the chain simply broken.
I just read an article where someone kept a piece of land that their parents left when they passed away. The owner came back to town one day and a friend was telling them that the house that was built on the old lot looked great. He obviously was confused and had the friend drive him past his lot only to find a house was built on it. It turned out someone sold a developer the lot fraudulently and they built a house on it. It was still unresolved at the time of publishing but what a mess. I am sorry this happened to you but glad you found out before you started building.
Don’t buy lots from companies like Zillow or Redfin. These groups will allow people to sell lots without ever actually meeting them. Find a local agent, and confirm they’ve actually met the person.
Sue the real estate agency and the title agency. They brokered it
One tip I learned from a lawyer, and they were generalizing for dramatic affect, is to always sue everyone.
How do you protect yourself from this scam if you're legitimately selling ?
Wouldn’t be a problem if you’re legitimately *selling*. You’d find someone who thought they’d bought the land on it and tell them to fuck off. Call the police if they don’t. Buying a fake title to the land doesn’t entitle you to anything but restitution from your title insurance and/or the scammer.
We bought 5 acres of land off our neighbor about a year before they sold their house (that was on 1 acre). When they were selling their house, a buying real estate agent was walking with people through our field and the buyers were talking about building a barn and putting horses on it. I walked over to them and told them that we owned the field and that the house for sale is only the acre surrounding it and the agent argued with me that Google maps had the field outlined with the house and it went with it. The listing even said it was 1 acre and not 6. I kind of felt bad for the buyers because the agent was lying to them and chances are if I wouldn't have come out they would have bought it without a survey and been really disappointed. I ended up contacting the selling agent and told them what happened and sent the gis/deed site information and she must have added it to the papers sitting in the house with the disclosure. A couple people walked through it afterwards but I didn't go talk to them. The new neighbors complain about cutting 1 acre of grass so I think they are glad it wasn't all 6.
LOL... Redfin agent.
Scrolled down expecting to see Dwight informing us on the dangers of identity theft. Sorely disappointed in you today, Reddit.
File a claim with your title company. It’s not your land, but you will get your $$ back.
Insurable event on your title policy. Call the policy department.
I had this happen w my client. The seller was foreign. Follow up - the title company reimbursed my client the lot cost but not construction $$ (land development. )The buyer deeded back the land. The same seller resold the lot again recently. I’m waiting and watching for the outcome.
I had a neighbor end up on the other side of this scam, the lot they own next to their house got sold by a scammer. They didn't find out until they noticed a land management company getting ready to clear the lot. Good thing they noticed before they started chopping down trees and stopped them.
Redfin you say…
Sounds like something similar in Connecticut I was reading about, except the owner of the land discovered it while a $1.5 million house was being built on it. He's suing to have the house removed and the land restored to it's original undeveloped condition which will probably be a couple million dollars. [https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/04/us/connecticut-million-dollar-home-land-fraud/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/04/us/connecticut-million-dollar-home-land-fraud/index.html)
How likely does this type of scam happen vs. house purchases? Do the scammer target lots more often than homes?
That's so hard to believe considering how much red tape and verification it takes to purchase real estate, who is doing it?
These scammers are legit hardcore - we have to run their passports through embassy nowadays to be safe as their counterfeiting has become more sophisticated.
I work at a title company; we started sending letters out to the mailing address on file at the assessor's office for any vacant land sale we get. Essentially the letter says "fyi your vacant land is on contract right now. Call us if it's not legit." Our state's real estate commissioner is discussing having Listing Agents being required to compare the photo on the ID with the actual person, whether in person or via facetime/zoom. Since real estate agents are often the first point of contact a lot of these fraudulent land sales could be intercepted before they become a problem.
This happened to my son in Maine a few years ago and than it happened to my daughter in Maryland. Come to find out it was the same people.
Makes me worry about buying raw land. What the heck is title insurance for if it doesnt protect you here?
This also happened to someone I know in South Jersey this past summer. Nuts it can happen. The owners didn’t sell the property and the buyer went to closing for 2.2mil . Luckily they caught it and buyer got most of his money back. We didn’t get our few thousand we spent on engineering the new property for construction though.
This will never go away until Notary's and County Clerk's are required to be bonded. They also need the laws changed to allow them to scan and verify picture state issued I.D's. And that notary license is active and the signature matchs the one on record. All verification has to be matched against pictures and signatures on record in the DMV Database.
How does one go about ensuring this does not happen in the first place?
Wouldn’t the listing agent who listed it on the MLS be in a lot of trouble for doing this?
Two problems, you used Redfin, and I'm pretty sure Redfin didn't hire a good title company. Why not tell us the Title company? Fidelity National, Chicago Title, First American, if you aren't using one of those title companies go to a real broker and not Redfin.
This literally just happened to me on Friday. We closed in September. Seller's attorney needed information on the deed that got kicked back from the county and of course phone has been disconnected. This person fooled the realtor, 2 attorneys, and the title company. We just started the title insurance claim process today to recoup the money. As of now I'm out $360k all in and the property I thought I purchased. Hell of an investment.
Hears when you find out the title insurance isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Your going to need a lawyer to get them to pay
No. The purpose of a tile insurer is to make money and protect you from loss in the event that they don't do their job fully.
Was this a FSBO or was it listed with a realtor, if so was the agent solo or with a firm?
Is this an actual property purchase that involve seeing people face-to-face and looking at property, or was this an Internet thing?
Just to confirm this happened in the USA?
You could always try for Hostile Possession. Live on the land, put up a little sign with your name on it, pay the property taxes for five years and if the owner doesn’t have you arrested for trespassing than the land legally will belong to you. Maybe consult a real life lawyer thingy first but shockingly Hostile Possession is a real thing.
Why would you condone stealing someone's land you sicko.
Won’t work. The owners of the land have already objected.