Dunedin man discovers his house was stolen through deed fraud

Love the creativity
Hate the purpose

 

There was an infomercial for this I watched in the middle of the night once when I couldn’t sleep, lol. It was selling deed security monitoring where they actively monitor your house to make sure there aren’t any people out there trying to steal your home. I laughed about it at first, but apparently it’s very real and can happen.

 

This has been going on for decades. They don't actually try to take possession of your house, they file paperwork to make it look like you sold them the house, they try to get a loan against it under a fraudulent name and walk off with the cash. After not paying on the loan, the real owner starts getting foreclosure notices ... can be a nightmare to straighten out ...

 

Clerk of the court cannot refuse a properly filled out quit claim deed.

Seminole County has a free service that will notify you of anything going on with you in the public records. if they do it, I'll bet many counties do as well.

if we would only execute a few of these thieves this problem would disappear

 

And that’s why you pay for title insurance folks.

 

Of course. But most homes are sold with a Guaranteed Deed, a title search, and title insurance.

Quit Claim Deeds, for folks unfamiliar, are when you sell your interest in a parcel without any type of guarantee what that interest actually is. Basically, “I’m selling what interest I own of Blackacre to X, but I’m not saying I have any actual interest in it.”

 

Speaking on owner's or lender's title policy?

 

Pasco, Pinellas, and hillsborough also appear to have a free service that will email you if your ownership status changes.

 

Buyer. I’m suggesting that if someone tries to sell you property they don’t own, that’s what protects you. I have little doubt these folks would have, if continuing to be successful, would have tried to convert this poor guy’s house again.

 

Always heard that the title policy you get at a normal closing usually only protects the lender, and only for the amount owed… and even then, they are filled with so many exceptions that it’s hard to even see it’s use. Title insurance has one of the lowest payout ratios of any type of insurance, and to be honest, I doubt they would cover this. The policies don’t cover any items added to the public records after the “effective date”, and this scam works by altering the public records after a home is paid off… I think this guy might be on his own….

 

Sorry, I clarified later. I was thinking of a subsequent attempt to convey.

It is outside my balliwick so I probably should have demurred.

 

You can purchase an owner's policy with the lender's policy that is required when you purchase a home, with a mortgage. I believe this is what g8rjd is referring to. I wasn't aware the owner's policy would cover a scenario like this.

 

Yeah, this is true, but I doubt many people know about this or have an owners policy. And I don’t think it covers this type of fraud either way, they are basically only guaranteeing that the person who sold you the property had the right to lawfully sell it… so someone changing the ownership records later doesn’t seem to fall under its coverage.

I had a professor talk about title insurance, and gave an example of what it would cover … he said he once bought a property that had a potential defect, they found a deed in the chain of title from decades ago that was only signed by the husband, when it appears he was possibly still married at the time, although it possible the wife had died or he was divorced, but her name was on the original buying deed, but didn’t sign off on the selling deed … in that case, the woman, if she was still alive, or even her heirs, could try to make a claim against it. But the title company wrote that off as an exception, so if that ever happened, the title company still wouldn’t cover it. They might cover it if they had missed it…..

 

You're saying the woman's name was on the deed with husband, but she didn't sign the deed over when he sold the home? Just trying to make sure I understand. Yeah, that would be a definite problem if she was still alive for sure. And the title company just got away with murder essentially by writing it off as an exception, sounds like. I think title companies probably make most of their money on the insurance premiums versus the actual functions they perform in a real estate transaction. Not surprising.

On the fraud mentioned above, I believe an owner's policy will prevent any liens resulting from other parties from attaching to your title. For example, a previous homeowner still owes a debt that was to be secured by the home, but the debt wasn't recorded as a lien at the time. The creditor/contractor then files a lien against the home, but now you are the new owner on title. The owner's policy protects you, the new owner, from that lien falling on you. At the same time, owner's policies generally cost a few hundred bucks up to over a $1,000 I've seen. Not cheap for something that could probably be preventable in a less expensive way. Somewhere lobbyists are likely involved.

 

That's pretty standard for title insurance, they go through the public records to find anything related to the property that could be a problem, then write it out as an exception they won't cover. It's up to the buyer to walk if they can't live with the exceptions. That's why they have such a low payout percentage...

 

This is why you get owners title insurance when you buy a home. Still it would be nightmare to deal with

 

It doesn't.

That policy would not have protected this Dunedin homeowner.

An abstract of title is only going to be valid as of the date it was prepared. Any transfers of interest or encumbrances that took place or were recorded after that date would not be reflected on it.


A title insurance policy is only going to protect you against defects, etc. that existed at the time the policy was written.

 

Title insurance companies in essence do an abstract of title up to the date of closing on the transfer of the real property.

I would think the thief's lender would be the one who gets stuck, having loaned money on a property which, under the above scenario, was occupied. They are deemed to have actual knowledge of the physical status of the property. If a bank loans money against occupied property, then it falls on the bank.