Fraud Alert: Forged Deed Accepted By County!

I recently had a vacant land lead call in with a double lot parcel in Fernandina Beach, Florida. The property was headed to tax auction at the end of October and the seller needed to close in a couple weeks. The requested price was around $280,000 – it was a good deal, but not so good that it was “unbelievable”.

There were red flags from the start. The seller’s name was not on the title. We directly asked: are you wholesaling this property? He claimed that it had been gifted to him by the owners on the title. We gave a suggested price verbally – but told him we needed to see the legal documentation of his “gift” or to enter contract with the actual owners.

Here’s where things got interesting. The following day, we received notarized documentation from the seller that confirmed he was the owner of the property. We followed up with the County, and they had indeed transferred the title to the seller’s name. We were a little surprised – but with his name formally on the title and registered with the county, the story we had been questioning appeared to have worked out. We submitted our offer and proceeded to due diligence.

We contacted our title agent to begin the search. As it turned out: (1) the county had flagged his deed as suspicious – but for unknown reasons – changed the title to this guy; (2) the notary was forged and that notary was not registered in any state; (3) given that a forged deed had been formally recorded by the county, title was now clouded. Our title agent even recommended against bidding at the tax auction due to the title issues.

This scam artists went to extreme extents. He fabricated e-mail addresses from the actual owners and sent us responses to communications. He carefully tailored his communications, naturally mixing in personal information concerning the sellers.

The most surprisingly fact about this entire experience is that the county simply transferred ownership over to this con man when it had already determined the filed paperwork was deficient. Essentially, anyone can forge paperwork, walk down to the county, and get on the title? That’s how it works in Fernandina Beach . . .

Moral of the story: you need a good title agent. Just because someone’s name is on the title doesn’t mean they are the rightful owners.