Criminals steal houses through deed forgery
It wasn't the first time Ivan Urbina had bought a house. And the closing seemed perfectly normal, except that the previous owner's furniture hadn't been moved out.
''I thought it was strange,'' Urbina remembered.
Things were to get only stranger. A few days later, a man came up the driveway with the deed to the house and the keys to the front door. The house, the man said, had been stolen and sold to Urbina with a fraudulent deed -- a legal document available at any office supply store.
In Florida, with no mechanism in place to ensure the authenticity of deeds filed at county offices, criminals have discovered that stealing a house can be easier than burglarizing one. With little more than a forged signature and a stolen notary's seal, thieves have scooped up homes and vacant lots, taking out a mortgage or selling the property to unsuspecting buyers before the original owners know what hit them.
Link: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/...ws/15302071.htm
Caveat emptor?