After a new law passed last year now requires Florida’s clerk of court offices to offer a free property fraud alert system to landlords, the system helped catch its first crooks.
Larry and Dreama Bilby decided to register their home while it was being renovated, and within two days they received a fraud alert.
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It turns out that another married couple, Michelle Cherry and Victor Rodriguez, went to the Hillsborough County Clerk’s office in February and fraudulently filed a quit claim deed on Bilby’s property.
The deed transferred ownership of Bilby’s property to Cherry and Rodriguez.
“I was so angry I almost couldn’t talk,” Dream told a local Fox affiliate. WTVT-TV.
Bilby also started noticing that some of his mail was going missing.
They were also receiving items in the mail addressed to Cherie.
“We found she registered her driver’s license at my address,” Larry said.
The cheating couple also delivered food to the house, which got the neighbors involved.
In March, police arrived at the property and spoke with Cherry, who told police it was her property and that she had had issues with the previous owner.
Cheri called the police to the property after a neighbor intervened and took away the mail with Larry’s name on it.
When asked if she rents by the police, she looks at the officer and says “I don’t,” and explains that she has an “agreement” with the previous owner.
She also says that despite being the owner, she doesn’t own the set of keys because she’s in a nasty legal dispute with the Bilbies, which was another lie.
Two weeks later, the couple was arrested during a traffic stop for fraud.
“She had a forged deed in her car at the time of her arrest,” Hillsborough State Attorney Suzy Lopez said.
“He’s been in a Florida state prison for over 275 years looking at what she’s accused of doing,” she explained.
What is deed fraud?
DEED fraud is a general term used to categorize any fraud used to illegally commandeer someone’s home through legal methods.
Some forms of this fraud are perpetrated in typical grifter fashion, with smooth-talking scammers targeting down-on-their-luck targets, sometimes promising loan forgiveness or mortgage refinancing.
Other times, like many quit claim deed fraud schemes, scammers forge paperwork to show they own a person’s home without ever knowing the true owner.
David Fleck, a South Carolinian real estate attorney, said technological advances have allowed more sophisticated fraudsters to commonplace quit deed scams.
“Twenty-five years ago, forging documents was not easy. Now, literally, every computer has reliable forgery technology and you can buy fake notary stamps online,” he said. Realtor.com.
“So the technology has outgrown the systems we have to prevent this very quickly,” warns Flake.
In any form of deed fraud, the victim is rarely aware of the scam until they try to apply for a loan or need paperwork on a home and it turns out they are no longer the owner.
Then, the only way back to home ownership is a potentially emotionally draining and lengthy legal battle.
“She has seven counts of first-degree felony identity theft, punishable by up to 30 years, and carries a mandatory minimum prison sentence of ten years.”
A common occurrence
Unfortunately, deed fraud has become a common type of scam across the country.
In Detroit, Michigan, 2,300 fraud cases have been opened since 2005, when the Mortgage and Deed Fraud Unit was created.
The task force has since convicted 347 people in Wayne County of deed fraud.
“All you need is a pen and paper,” Bernard Youngblood, Wayne County Register of Deeds, told a local news outlet. Bridge Detroit.
“You don’t even have to leave your house.”
A Detroit native, Donna Alford, spoke to a local Fox affiliate WJBK-TV About her story.
She, like Bilby, set out to renovate her house when she was told the deed had changed, and her father signed it.
The problem is, her father, George Booth, had been dead for over two years at this point.
But while Booth’s signature was not suspected to be forged, the issue was yet to be investigated by the police.
“You’re in for at least a two- or three-year ride,” she explained of the process of getting everything sorted.
After her story was published by WJBK-TV, the Macomb Register of Deeds took notice and Alford was able to see justice for the two men who defrauded her.
But deed fraud is not the only issue in the Florida and Detroit issue.
Youngblood noted that it is a major concern for law enforcement agencies and Register of Deeds offices across the country.
Youngblood said he also met with U.S. Senator Gary Peters to discuss what options Congress might have to address deed fraud at the federal level.
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