Heirs can help elders protect themselves against becoming victims of growing property fraud trend [South Florida Sun-Sentinel]

Robert Felder, 91, says he didn’t learn that the house he has owned since 1963 wasn’t in his name anymore until he tried to renew his homeowner insurance last summer.

Felder’s insurance agent called to say he couldn’t accept the insurance check because the deed had been transferred to someone else.

And just like that, the Fort Lauderdale retiree found himself in danger of being evicted from the home he has lived in for 62 years, where he raised his family and which he paid off 15 years ago, secure that he had a safe place to live out his remaining years.

Felder’s claims are the subject of a police investigation. If true, they are indicative of a cruel type of property fraud that’s as audacious as it is frighteningly easy to commit. Officials say property fraud is becoming more common as more and more fraudsters look to cash in on South Florida property values that have skyrocketed since 2020.

It works like this: Anyone can download a blank Quit Claim Deed, add their name as the grantee, and forge the signature of the rightful deed holder as the grantor. If they find a notary public willing to ignore laws that requires witnessing the grantor signing the document, it can be notarized and recorded in the county’s public records division.

It’s that simple. If the actual owner doesn’t notice that the owner of record has changed, the fraudster can then sell or rent the house, borrow against the equity, or take out a mortgage, among other options.

Officials at the Broward County Property Appraiser’s Office and Palm Beach County Clerk of Courts Office have stepped up efforts to warn homeowners, especially the elderly, of how vulnerable they are to this type of fraud, and to urge them to sign up for services that can help them avoid losing their homes.

A growing problem for seniors

Broward County Property Appraiser Marty Kiar’s office now has a team of five investigators who focus on property deed fraud. “It’s such a huge issue,” Kiar says. “And it’s become a very big priority for our office.”

Last summer, an investigation by Kiar’s office and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office led to arrests and convictions of two women who searched obituaries and used deed transfers to swindle heirs out of homes owned by deceased relatives. An investigator in Kiar’s office said the women were connected to 67 such cases across the state.

In October, a 44-year-old man was charged with creating a fictitious person to become executor of a Seabreeze Boulevard property worth more than $1 million.

In August, a Hialeah man was charged with impersonating the owner of two five-acre parcels in Southwest Ranches and taking out a $516,000 mortgage on the property. The property’s actual owners learned of the fraud when they received a letter addressed to a business in their name that did not exist. Then they searched Broward County property records and discovered a document transferring the deed to a company created by the suspect.

Many of the fraudsters are out-of-state residents who look for properties owned by recently deceased elders, says Palm Beach County Clerk of Courts Joe Abruzzo, whose office works with affected homeowners. The fraudsters gamble that they have time to make money off the properties before heirs notice what they’ve done, he said.

Seniors can enlist heirs to help with alert services

While local officials say they have no power to stop fraudulent recordings, Broward, Palm Beach and other Florida counties have in recent years established property fraud alert services that immediately notify homeowners by email of any document recording that transfers ownership of their home.

Broward’s service can be found online at https://web.bcpa.net/owneralert. Palm Beach residents can sign up at: https://erec.mypalmbeachclerk.com/FraudAlert.

Hundreds of thousands of homeowners have signed up for such services. But what might not be well-known is that heirs or designees of elderly homeowners such as Felder, who aren’t comfortable using email or the internet, can sign up on their elders’ behalf.

Broward County’s “Owner Alert” service requires users to submit an official property identification number, plus a state driver license number or identification card number to verify ownership of the property.

An heir or designee of the owner who wants to receive alerts must contact the office to identify themselves and their relationship to the property owner, Kiar says.

Palm Beach County’s “Property Fraud Alert” service, however, does not require proof of ownership or verification of the user’s relationship to the homeowner. Users can simply type in the owner’s name, the property address, its parcel number, and the legal description of the property to have alerts sent to the user’s email address.

Because Palm Beach County’s Clerk of Courts administers that county’s service, it differs from Broward’s service by sending alerts whenever any document is recorded involving the property, including liens, mortgages, and notices of commencement by contractors.

In Broward County, 178,351 subscribers have signed up for a service called “Owner Alert” that’s available on Kiar’s website. Since the service was established in spring 2021, 23,723 owner alerts have been sent, though a majority of those conveyed reports of legitimate property transfers, Kiar said.

Nearly 40,000 Palm Beach users have registered for that county’s service since 2015, and more than 300,000 alerts have gone out, says Joseph Abruzzo, Palm Beach County’s Clerk of Courts.

Miami-Dade County’s Clerk of Court does not yet offer an email alert service but mails a letter to property owners whenever a Quit Claim Deed is recorded for the property.

Fraud cases on the rise

Kiar and Abruzzo say there’s no way to determine how many of the alerts in their counties resulted from fraudulent deed recordings, but Mila Schwartzreich, general counsel and director of administration for the Broward property appraiser’s office, says the number of property fraud cases assigned to her office’s investigative division has been increasing every week.

The five-member investigative team working out of Kiar’s office includes two full-time investigators recently hired by the office, plus a Broward County Sheriff’s Office detective and a Fort Lauderdale police officer who helps develop criminal cases against property fraud suspects.

Since February, the unit has investigated 109 complaints, found about 60 fraudulent deeds and helped police make six arrests, Kiar said.

Felder feels lucky to have discovered the deed transfer before his house was sold. He has no plans to leave until he dies.

The discovery “made me feel real bad,” Felder said in an interview. “You know how you’d feel if you’ve stayed in a house since 1960 and paid the house off.”

Making matters worse, Felder says he was in his bedroom one day recently when he heard three people enter and wander around his house. It was an investor and two prospects. Felder believes that the person who filed the deed transfer also was trying to sell the house for $200,000 and have him evicted.

Felder’s case is under criminal investigation, a Fort Lauderdale police spokesperson said.

Felder is working with a former title company owner to get his deed transferred back into his name.

Elizabeth Smith, who owned a title company for 20 years and is now a consultant for a restaurant owned by Felder’s niece, said that after finding out about the impending sale, she called the title company that was working on the transaction and told them that the title was in dispute. That forced the title company to stop the process, she said.

Since then, Smith has been working with Felder and his niece to help investigators gather evidence against the suspected fraudster.

Act fast to make wrongs right

Schwartzreich says it’s important for homeowners to sign up for owner alert services because time is of the essence when fraudulent deed transfers are filed in a county’s recording office.

Victims “need to immediately reach out and report the fraud to us and their local law enforcement agencies, as well as their mortgage servicers,” she said. “They should notify as many people of the issue as possible as quickly as possible. Then the investigative process begins.”

It’s much easier to rescind the fraudulent filings if they are discovered before the fraudsters rent or sell a property or use it as collateral for a loan, she says.

Owners will be asked to provide information to help law enforcement agencies identify and arrest culprits. They’ll also be asked to provide statements under oath attesting that they are the true property owners and were victimized by fraudulent transfers, Schwartzreich said.

Immediately after discovering the fraudulent transfer by the Hialeah suspect, owners of his targeted properties in Southwest Ranches recorded a “Notice of Fraudulent Transfer/Fraudulent Mortgages” declaring that “at no time” did they “execute, authorize, provide permission, participate in or be made aware of any such transactions or documents with regard to the transfer ... or mortgages obtained” until after the transfer.

Felder filed a similar affidavit earlier this month, Broward County Official Records show.

Rightful owners will likely have to go to court to set things straight, Schwartzreich said. “Unfortunately, it’s not pleasant for the property owner,” she said. “The good thing is, property owners have resources and we are that resource.”

Options include seeking to vacate or rescind the fraudulent deed in criminal court or working through the civil court to file a Quiet Title Action to get the title restored in the rightful owners’ names, she said.

Kiar and Abruzzo say they regularly reach out to elderly homeowners to urge them to sign up for the fraud alert services.

Kiar says he travels to retirement villages preaching the importance of monitoring their property’s records.

Abruzzo says he urges homeowners not to fall for third parties advertising the same alert services for a fee. “They’re just obviously linking to our system,” he said. Programs provided by counties, including Broward and Palm Beach, don’t charge fees, he said.

“I implore property owners to please sign up. It’s free and can save you a lot of headache some day,” he said.

Ron Hurtibise covers business and consumer issues for the South Florida Sun Sentinel. He can be reached by phone at 954-356-4071, on Twitter @ronhurtibise or by email at [email protected].

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