Having your house stolen may seem unlikely, but the FBI has been warning about the crime for decades, as evidenced by a 2008 story describing “house stealing” as the “latest scam on the block.”
Thanks to the rise in technologies that make document forgery easier, there’s a growing risk of home title theft. Recently, a woman was even arrested for the attempted theft of Graceland from the Presley family.
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If you own a home or property, you need to know how this scam works and what you can do to protect your real estate from dishonest actors.
Home or land theft can technically happen with any property, but it’s more common with vacant real estate. Vacation houses, inherited properties, and homes people have moved out of to move into nursing homes are common targets.
Scammers can target these properties in a few ways. Usually, the process starts with finding out who owns a property using online information and creating fake IDS so they can pretend to be the true owner. Next, they’ll either:
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Transfer the property to themselves and then sell it and pocket the cash, or get a cash-out refinance mortgage on it, pocket the money, and never make a payment
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Find a buyer and sell the property directly to them, often in a quick sale.
When this happens, innocent buyers typically pay the scammer, the documents with the forged IDs are submitted to authorities, and the county will officially transfer ownership to the “buyer,” who becomes the new legal owner in the eyes of the law. This leaves the rightful owner without the title and deed to the house and forced to go to court to try and get their property back.
Sadly, as the Internet has made it easier to find property owners and forge documents, rates of home theft are on the rise. While the FBI doesn’t have a separate category specifically for this offense, the agency’s 2023 Internet Crime Report shows there were 9,521 fraud complaints related to real estate totaling over $145.2 million in annual losses.
Also, the New York Post reported recently on the growing number of title fraud claims, including a recent Detroit case involving a scammer who stole more than 30 homes.
