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Do We Need A Title Theft Statute?
Recent years have seen numerous reports of what has colloquially been called "property theft" or "deed theft" in New York. The state Attorney General has championed a statute, now introduced in the state legislature, making "Property Theft" a crime. Would the statute be helpful? Answering that question requires some background.
No one is physically staling recorded deeds. Instead, the chicanery falls into two basic patterns, with variations. In the first pattern, the true owner of the property plays no role in the illegitimate transfer of title, and may be completely unaware of the supposed theft. A forger locates a property, typically with an absentee owner (sometimes the heir of the previous owner), and prepares a deed on the owner's behalf, and then uses fake identification papers to present the deed to a notary for notarization, which enables recording of the deed. At that point, the forger is ready to resell the property or to seek mortgage financing on the security of the property.
The second pattern involves a predator who targets an owner in financial distress, generally because the owner cannot make the mortgage payments. The wrongdoer then has the owner sign a deed, representing that the deed is necessary to arrange a short sale that will relieve the owner of mortgage obligations, or perhaps representing that the document is a loan document rather than a deed. The owner then signs the document, which the wrongdoer then uses to his advantage.
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