House Stealing 101

“the ID thieves aren't on to it fully yet, we gotta edumacate them folks......

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/march08/housestealing_032508.html

What do you get when you combine two popular rackets these days—identity theft and mortgage fraud? A totally new kind of crime: house stealing.

Here’s how it generally works:

… The con artists start by picking out a house to steal—say, YOURS.
… Next, they assume your identity—getting a hold of your name and personal information (easy enough to do off the Internet) and using that to create fake IDs, social security cards, etc.
… Then, they go to an office supply store and purchase forms that transfer property.
… After forging your signature and using the fake IDs, they file these deeds with the proper authorities, and lo and behold, your house is now THEIRS.”

“Something about stealing a static object seems like it would make it really easy to get caught. Especially if the theives are living there!”

“i would be more worried about BUYING a home that was stolen. if you did that you would be SCREWED when the stolen property was recoverd by it's owner. OUCH! if your house was "stolen" you will have a mess to clean up but you will still own your house at the end of the day.

i wonder if title insurance covers this sort of thing?”

“this sounds even scarier then those fictitious "predatory lenders"”

“Whoopee, we're all living on stolen land anyway.”

“Well, why don't you offer to give your's back then Nimble?”

“I'm not whinin'. Along with that they got their own damn reservation, hotel and casino here. They don't want my place. If they did, I'd probably just take my hiking gear and head for somewhere along the AT in Carolina. Win-win, it's all in how you see it:)”

“I believe this is exactly what title insurance is for. Purchasing title insurance protects you against someone coming back and saying it's their land. You would lose the land, but you would get your green back.”

“Well, that'd be a good place to go, NF.”

“that's what i thought, but i was thinking that title insurance might only cover a legal chain of custody and not necessarily fraud. i never thought about this before. people make mistakes and i thought title insurance was designed to protect you from mistakes in earlier filings of deed. i am going to have to go back and re-read my policy.”

“That's it, the damn Indians should have had title insurance. I gotta tell the bloods at the Hole in the Wall. Is it retroactive?”

“i would be more worried about BUYING a home that was stolen

If you had to get a mortage to buy a "stolen" house, a title search would be conducted and that would most likely reveal the cloud on the title. If the search did not turn up anything, the title insurance would protect you financially if defects turned up later. I think that's how it works.”

“Yes. You are correct.”

“now...about them stolen trees, Nimble........”

“The next step in the scam is, of course, mortgaging the "stolen" house to the hilt.

A lawyer not to far from here got nailed doing exactly that.”

“It's kinda hard to believe that thieves could steal a house so easily. I own two and had to spend 4 hours each time signing my life away just to buy them. So much paperwork involved I would think it would almost be impossible.”

“The title wouldn't be good for anything but mortgage fraud.”