Land Trust and Fraud (?)

[Jose Rubio]

I am very new to Land Trust and all the possible uses of them, but I wanted to post something here and here opinions on the validity of this transaction. I will try to explain to the best of my ability what I have found so far, if more information is needed, please ask and I will attempt to provide it.

1. A married couple has a home in the foreclosure process, a company or individual has convinced the bank to accept a short sale.
2. The home is put up for sale on MLS. Offers are submitted and one is accepted (to my knowledge $7000.00 under at least one of the best offers) for $48,000.00
3. Sellers are delivered closing documents and asked to sign them in front of notary (husband was out of town, person delivering documents suggest they might know a notary who is willing to notarize without husband being present) Wife knows better and request my assistance in reviewing documents , before signing anything .
4. They come in and I begin to review the documents, settlement statement shows married couple as sellers and LLC as trustee of land trust as purchasers (everything normal so far)
5. Warranty Deed shows same, sellers married couple and buyer the, LLC trustee of land trust (still fairly normal)
6. Land Trust Document and sellers are the sole beneficiaries 50/50,,,now it's getting weird... (still might be okay,, but I don't know), trustee is LLC, who's managing member is not a real/physical person, the sole managing member is a "fictitious name" yes fake person..the fictitious name is made to appear, like a normal (although a bit foreign sounding) name
7. The successor to the "fake" trustee is no other than the realtors/agent's husband (had to do some cyber digging to find this)
8. and finally an assignment of beneficial interest in the land trust is to be signed by sellers to trustee LLC, whos managing member is this "fake trustee", which fictitious name is registered to the husband of the agent
9. In my perspective, the listing agent/broker never presented the better offer (i have proof there was a cash better offer),and consequently will end up owning this property......Thoughts ...comments...educate me please...

[Dion DePaoli]

Well, this was an exciting and interesting short exercise in REI detective work. Nice job Bill with the theories, I think you called it on both those fronts. I am taken back at the complexity and efforts this agent and husband have gone. I got to think this is not their first attempt, they have done some homework. If the agent is a REO agent for the bank or servicer who knows how many times they pulled or tried to pull this off. Somebody is going to have a field day with them.