Six months after buying my home, I noticed two women looking intently at my property. They then came to the door to ask me about the house being for sale. They said it had been listed on Craig's List. Sure enough, I found the ad on Craig's List, using the realtor pictures. I reported the ad to the listing site and I called my realtor and the lawyer who conducted the transfer. Luckily, nothing had occurred to challenge my ownership. I was told that the best thing I could do is pay for title insurance. This really makes me mad. I've paid a lawyer to properly transfer title. I've paid fees and taxes to the registry. Why should I be made to line the insurance industries pockets because the title system won't bear full legal responsibility for exercising proper and rigorous oversight?
My title company never transferred my title so Bank of America still owned my house for almost a year after I bought it. I figured it out because I hadn't received a property tax bill from the county because it was sent to California where BoA ignored it. Fortunately for me BoA never tried to sell the property a second time.
Normally if you close at a title company, title insurance is included in a bundled fee. My last one 2yrs ago was $645 and included these: Closing protection Ltr Endorsement - EPA Endorsement - miscellaneous Settlement - closing fee Title - title insurance - lenders
So the lawyer gets away with 9 counts of what essentially amounts to grand theft (on a grand scale), impersonating an officer of the court, filing faise documents and a long list of other crimes by paying $58,000, while the landscaper gets 3 years imprisonment? What a joke. No wonder these scams are rampant. That lawyer should be doing serious jail time for EVERY one of those grand thefts, time served consequetively AND be ordered to pay EVERY one of those victims for ANY and ALL costs they have related to being robbed of their property, ie damages to or changes made to their property by parties the lawyer rented the properties to. Until these crooks are truly held responsible for these SERIOUS crimes, they will continue unabated. $58,000 is pocket change many lawyers.
I guess they were at least smart enough to go after properties where the owner had passed away. I'm old, divorced, and don't have children. If someone did this to me while I'm still alive, I'll just say I'd have nothing left to lose if someone stole my home from underneath me.
You'd expect the lawyer to have known better than the landscaper how wrong and illegal his actions were. He should have received a far longer sentence and forfeit nearly all his worldly possessions
Not just notary stamps. I do silversmithing, and I have a "925" and a "999" stamp to use on my work. Each cost about $10 on Amazon. I also let all my customers know that the stamp on the metal is only as trustworthy as the person holding the hammer, whether it be 925, 585, 14K, 18K, etc.
@@georgemead6608 it’s what kills me about all the scammers overseas. If the put half the effort into working properly that they do scamming people, the progress would be scary
After Mom died so many people I didn't know, and pretty sure Mom didn't know either, showed up or called saying she had promised to sell the place to them, some of them even named a price that was well below market value. People can be pretty depressing sometimes.
She should have sold it to them before she passed then. The executor of the estate does not have to honor undocumented verbal agreements that may or may not actually exist. I would have asked each one for some form of proof that she actually made the promise. Not that I would intend to honor the supposed promise mind you. I would just be interested in seeing just how far these people would be willing to take it.
I just buried grandma a week before Christmas. Our family is pretty chill but we worried about the neighbor across the street trying to break in or someone trying to steal her African Grey or silverware.
When I was in the Navy, I had written a Sailor a 72 hour "sick in quarters" (SIQ) letter and stamped it with my name/rank/title, etc., and signed over it. Routine. Two weeks later, a unit Master Chief came to see me about the dozens of "SIQ" letters, giving half his squad 3 days off 😎 😂😂 thinking I was nuts. An enterprising Sailor was making $50 a letter that was a copy of my original. Except...my stamp was in red, not black from copying it. 😂 I love the ingenuity 😂😂
Had a shipmates who was recovering from having a boil on his butt drained. He was routinely asked to show his SIQ chit and his injury, that he taped the form to the outside of his rack and hung his bare butt outside the rack curtains.
@carrieking2247 I was challenged about actually having hernia surgery by my XO. I dropped my pants and boxers right in the middle of the morning meeting. I stood at attention just long enough for them to get the point. Don't challenge The Doc. 😄 😁
This is like when I was a draftee in Vietnam at a US Army Intelligence computer center in Saigon. We got two paid seven day leaves during a none year tour to cities like Hong Kong or Bangkok. We figured out that the approving officer didn't pass on his approval list to the replacement after his one-year tour. So, we (enlisted computer operators) filed two more 7-day leave requests with the new officer, he approved them., and we got two more trips. The military is full of loopholes like that. My supervising sergeant was using the Army phone system to trade captured rifles in the field for pallets of steaks liberated from trucks delivering them to military cafeterias. That is why I later became an anti-corruption manager in Iraq and Afghanistan on contracts.
This is why the whole notary system needs an overhaul. I found out how easy it was to become one years ago because I needed a notarized statement for a job. It was the most ridiculous thing ever but yeah...it was way too easy.
In some states you can only become a notary after a thorough background check, and fingerprinting. You also have to have your photo taken and take an extensive written test. You then have to renew your notary license every few years by retaking an updated notary test.
I live in Indiana and you have pass a background check, take a class and exam, buy a 25,000 surity bond and its good for 7 years. I have been thinking about getting my notery license.
To be fair, how easy or difficult it is to become a notary has absolutely nothing to do with how these crimes were allowed to happen. After all, either way these crooks still would have been able to get the fake notary stamps online. And either way the documents still would have been casually accepted for filing. Furthermore, one of the guys used to be a lawyer and it’s a hell of a lot more difficult to become a lawyer than a notary but that still did not stop him. The point is that no matter how difficult it is to gain a certain position there are still always going to be some crooks in those positions.
I live in Canada but had to have a document notarized in the U.S. several years ago. What really caught my attention was that the notary kept a log book of every document that she notarized which I thought was a brilliant idea. After witnessing few hundred signature, it's unlikely that anyone would remember if they did or did not witness a particular one. And this log was the answer to that potential problem.
In the process of settling my mother's estate, the trust's lawyer and I made countless trips to a notary at the local mail box store. That notary kept a log book, and if I remember correctly, I had to sign the line in the book that pertained to our transaction. I also of course had to show my ID. A former co-worker of mine had become a notary to assist our employer with all the stuff he had to have notarized. She too kept a log. Based on this admittedly limited experience, I have always believed that keeping a log is standard practice.
@@CrankyBeach Speaking as a notary, yes this is standard practice. We need to protect ourselves as notaries, and so this is one of the ways we do this.
Believe that is a requirement of all notaries -- otherwise it would be trivial to forge the notary's signature. Their own log book is the ultimate proof the documents were actually properly signed and witnessed by them. Checks and balances.
every legitimate notary public keeps a record of documents notarised by them. that's how those nortaries could confidently say they had never stamped the documents. just looked in their records for the date on the document in question.
I am a professional Electrical Engineer in CA. My PE stamp was $30 bought online with zero proof I am actually this person or that the info is correct. Welcome to the reality society is a house of cards.
Great topic! My Florida County's Court Clerk in Lake County, FL has a system to let homeowners register to be notified if ANY change is made in the home official documents.
I remember a news story about a senior citizen scammed by the reverse mortgage company, it wasn't until her adult children found out and reported it to a tv network. The senior woman had no idea what she had signed she thought it was for a loan to remodel her house.
There was an woman in France who lived to be 115 or so. She made a deal to sell her house for a monthly payment for the rest of her life. The buyer had to make all repairs and she got to live there until she died. They signed the contract when she was about 70. She outlived both the buyer and his son (who kept up the payments, because she was something like 95 when his father died. lol)
My sister was an accountant and notary public for a builder. The owner's wife removed my sister's seal from the office safe and forged several documents. It took over a year to straighten out the mess. The builder was put out of business. Even though not guilty of forging documents, my sister can never be a notary again. She can no longer be bonded. No company will take a chance. If your a Notary buy a small lock box to hold your stamp and seal in a company's safe. Don't give anyone access to the combination or key.
An elderly physically-infirm buddy of mine had a problem something like this some decades ago --- a selfish sneaky lady who wanted to move to a different locale forged quit-claim-deed papers saying that my friend had signed over his home and property to her. The judge in the case was a notorious bum, and so he accepted the woman's bogus paperwork as final, and refused my friend's request to have a handwriting analysis performed to compare his signature with the writing on the forms. So my friend ended up homeless for a while, and never did get to move back into his home.
What bothers me is this is theft of several homes. Homes in NY have to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. This has to be grand theft or larceny, right? Only 3 years for possibly millions of dollars in theft? I'm sure I'm missing something since I'm not a lawyer, but this just doesn't make sense.
It was their first time, they're good boys they go to church every Sunday, it wouldn't be fair to ruin their lives for a foolish mistake, he takes care of his grandmother, they volunteer at a soup kitchen... - Don't care. Do serious time or let someone "express their NY discontent" some dark evening.
They need the room in jail for all those crazy dangerous potheads, obviously. Who cares if people are financially hurt and physically homeless because, watch out! Marcus has the munchies, it's all hands on deck, we got em boys!
The fines also sound ludicrously low for the huge payout they would have gotten if someone actually bought even one of the stolen homes off of them. At a minimum they probably would have been looking at a $400,000+ profit per property, but possibly much more then that.
I used to work at a title company and one of the Title Officers once told me a story of a guy who, just to show he easily it is to get around the system, used a metes and bounds legal description to deed himself a 1" square "parcel" in the middle of Lake Tahoe.
So courts just blindly accept paperwork that looks legit on a cursory examination... but when I tried to do my own extremely-uncomplicated divorce in California 25 years ago, I was well into double digits on paperwork being rejected because some obscure "i" was not dotted or a "t" crossed. And it took the double digits' worth of "green sheets" for someone to finally notice the ever-thickening stack of green paper in my file and ask me if I'd been to the advocate's office. No, I hadn't, because nobody bothered to actually tell me that there was a person right down the hall whose job it was to help people like me with their paperwork. The whole process would have been a lot easier for me if the courts blindly accepted paperwork back then as they apparently do now. And those gas-hogging double digits' worth of 1-hour round trips to the courthouse and back would not have been necessary and cost me all that gas money.
They still ream everyone, nothing has changed except the hourly costs are closer to $500 an hour (and they wonder why Americans are so angry after years of being trapped in the “English Law Legacy” of corruption.
I remember reading an article about something like this happening near me. This is pretty frightening because you might not know that someone took your home and if you're too elderly or sick it might feel almost impossible to deal with
At least the people got their homes back. When a lawyer in my hometown did something similar, everyone involved was just outta luck. Except for the lawyer himself, of course. While it was common knowledge that he was a crook, he targeted homeowners who couldn't afford to take him to court, he was friends with the Police Chief and he worked for the town, so the extent of his crimes weren't confirmed until after he died and his files went to another lawyer. Even then, nothing was done about it.
A law office in my state had a secretary who was not a notary notarizing documents. Upon futher investigation there was no law on the books that made this illegal. The laws were changed.
Did the notary have a fake notary stamp? The notary stamp has to have the notary name and notary license number on it, along with the expiration date of the notary license.
@@300books She had her name and a fake number from what I understand -- that's all that is required in my state, typed name and number. The stamp looked legitimate. EDIT: Actually, it was another notary's number.
@@300books It was a really interesting case because the fake notary worked for a VIP -- the DA of the county, as I recall. She didn't get in trouble because there was no law on the books against it and they argued her actions had hurt no one, so she got away with it.
@@KabobHope . Shocking! This woman commits fraud, holds herself out to be a notary-licensed individual when she's not. What next, fake driver's license which will be OK as long as you don't hurt anyone? Terrible laws out there!
@@KabobHope Except that her actions and those of the attorneys who allowed it to happen did cause harm to the people of their state. The whole point of the notary system is to ensure that legal documents have been properly signed and that the processes for determining the identity of the signers are who they say they are when we sign off on it and apply our seal. If there is no confidence in the legitimacy of the signatures on the documents, then the courts and business are dramatically impacted and have to spend valuable time and money duplicating the job I was commissioned to do. There are still ways for bad actors to game the system. Fake photo IDs…but if I have doubts about the ID presented, the parties before me, or if I’ve got any feelings the transaction is dodgy, I have the right to refuse to notarise the document. They may well find someone else who will but I will not willingly destroy the trust the system is intended to bring to legal transactions and documents.
In the state of Georgia Quit Claim Deeds are the most rampant form of property theft in the state by far. No verification is required for a Quit Claim Deed to be accepted. It is very hard to have it reversed as well. A travelers family used a Quit Claim Deed to move into a $700,000 home in a neighborhood near mine and it took years after the discovery before the rightful owners were able to obtain ownership of their property and have the travelers family removed from the home.
EXACTLY! Citizens have to pay and pay and pay to get any justice in the United States. And they wonder why we hate these sociopaths running our “legal”system. What a joke, the judges and attorneys need to be taken down a few pegs! Crazy money making schemes called “legal industry”. Medical & Legal should not be industrialized against their people.
Why not just do the same as the scammers and file a Quit Claim Deed transferring it back to your ownership? Worked for the scammers it should work for owners who had it transferred from them. who would stop it? No one stopped the scammers so no one would stop the true owners. I would at least try it.
@@robert5 Two wrongs don't make a right. Think; Would you really file fraudulent paperwork? Law enforcement would prosecute you and the scammer for the same crime (of filing fraudulent paperwork).
@@caLLLendar The authorities will barely bother with these supposed crimes unless you dog the hell outa them. This is why this is happening. Cops will tell you it is a legal matter so get a lawyer and sue in court. So cops are gonna bust in with guns drawn and cuff me because I take "my" house back? I would take that chance.
So theoretically I could go down to my County Courthouse and just start filing liens on all the properties in my County in hopes that statistically I get a pay day when they transfer ownership? Wow! Kinda unbelievable!
My mom was sending out false divorce papers that said dad was assuming all her debts up to the date of the divorce being finalized. I guess hers were fake enough Kia's regional finance guy looked at the front page of the real copy, chucked her fakes in the trash, and walked away.
If your state allows it, file a "Transfer on Death" deed on your property. The lawyer has to pay back ill gotten games and the landscaper goes to prison. No surprise there.
Here in CA if anything happens with the title they send a letter to your house and USPS has this wonderful feature on their site where they'll send you an email with all letters that are going to be receiving each day, so if you set that up and notice you're supposed to get a letter from the county you might want to see what its about.
In NYS, a licensed attorney in good standing could simply apply to be a notary. I started law school later in life than most of my classmates and graduated in two and a half years at the top 8% of my class. After passing the NYS bar exam the first try and being sworn in, when people asked why I decided to become an attorney, my response was that I did not think I could pass the notary exam.
In the UK it is actually worst. There is one form to be completed and sent to the land registry. To transfer ownership of a property and it is normally signed by the solicitor. But anyone can complete the form and sign it.
I love how many issues could be avoided if the courts (i.e., the clerks of court) actually cared and were responsible for what gets legally recorded in their official records. Why make it your problem when you can have the goon squad punish the plebs instead, and ignore the plight of owners of the property you helped facilitate the theft of? It's easier that way.
I don't want Florida's (60+) Clerk of the Courts to have police powers. Also, giving them the responsibility to verify all recorded documents would just jack up the cost of recording anything and huge time delays. Bad idea in Florida. No thanks.
Then no recorded document should be considered final until the 'selling' party has been reached via the existing phone number and verifies the transfer.@@Times_Ticking
Bureaucrats are only interested in their paychecks, their holidays, their benefits, and you and your concerns just get in the way of collecting all that.
I made a previous comment on another one of Lehto's law video that was related to a very similar situation. I live in St Petersburg, FL (Pinellas County). The county Property appraiser has a very simple system to protect people from this type of scam. Any and all real estate transactions that come through the property appraisers' office require that an email be sent to the owner of the property that there is some type of activity occuring on the property they own. As far as I know, there has never been a property scam in Pinellas County.
A landscaper and a lawyer scam eventually evicts someone from their home. You don’t understand. They don’t want to straighten it out. Too much money to be made unethically.
It sounded like the lawyer also was the landscaper. Odd combo, I thought. But plausible because it's hard to earn a decent living as an attorney. With the exception of Mr. Leto ...
@@MLenninger It could be that the lawyer was in the place to do all of the legal paperwork, while the landscaper did the looking for houses. Being a landscaper gives you a very good excuse to go door-to-door, knocking on doors, checking if people live there, and contacting property owners. The lawyer might also want a landscaper to clean up the yard before sale to make it look more legit and increase the price. Some people might be more nervous about buying a house if the front and backyard look like a small jungle.
I used to work tech in a fraud department and part of my job for onboarding clients would be to verify notaries; Philadelphia was especially difficult since at the time, they embossed their documents which would not show via a photo copy
@@KabobHopea notarization is just proof that the signing was witnessed -- it doesn't prove whether anything in the document itself is fraudulent or not. The notarization is simply official proof that person W, signed paper X, at time Y -- signing witnessed by notary Z. Notary's don't type up contracts or deeds or anything like that. The fraud committed here was the attorney was forging the deceased victim's signature, and also forging the notary as the witness to that signing. Victim's family calls BS and goes to the notary to verify the signing actually happened -- notary looks in their own records and confirms everyone's signature is forged.
We are selling a property in Nevada and we did receive a US mail letter giving us notice from the title company informing us that someone was trying to sell the property and to notify them immediately if we were not selling the property.
I was almost killed for my notary stamp last year on December 24th. OSP officers are in on the racketeering going on in the biker gangs here in Oregon. NO ONE BELIEVED ME. Most terrifying experience of my entire life.
The police… when dirty… destroy our society and our country… they turn their face from child molestation, drug running( participants) , and other forms of racketeering… we have officially arrived in a banana republic… corrupt government, corrupt FBI, DOJ, CIA, and now police.
@stoneyswolf yes. Twice. They even called me back. Once. I also filed a DPSST report and reported it to multiple law enforcement agencies, the DA, my governor, and my state representatives. Even the Secretary of State who ISSUED me my certificate and highly urged us to report all fraud. I got Crickets. Absolutely just crickets. I even filed stalking orders against the folks in the initial situation. I've been pretty much in hiding ever since. Use a different name, cut ties to my original social media accounts and emails, and I still check to make sure I'm not being followed and that I'm always aware of my surroundings.
I can’t believe this would actually work… In my state notarization isn’t just stamping the document itself. You also get an entry in a big book that the notary must enter the time, date, and (I believe) your driver’s license number or whatever ID you show them, and sometimes there needs to be a witness as well. I assume this is so you can’t just go around notarizing documents with a notary seal you bought on amazon. I assume if this happened in my state you would summon the notary to court and ask to see the matching entry. Just the date alone would probably be a huge gamble. What are the chances that the fake notary would have a legit date in the book where the victim was not dead, out of state, or have another plausible alibi. I’m also hard pressed to understand how these scammers would prove that actual funds changed hands. Like what, they just paid the guy in cash, and there is absolutely no record of hundreds of thousands of dollars changing hands? Another thing that happens in my state… When a house is sold, the state is very keen on receiving tax proceeds for the transaction. That is usually handled by the lawyer’s office, I believe, that handles the closing, at the closing. I just can’t believe none of that has to happen in NY. That seems nuts to me.
How long do you think it takes in court processes, attorney fees to stop a criminal from trying to steal your home??? Would you believe, ten years!!!😮Yep, had to take it to the State Appellate Court, because the person trying to steal my home hired an attorney that was “besties” with a corrupt judge.🎯
Of course it works -- all the steps you describe are way too much for the millions of homes transferred each year and only happen if someone challenges it. Documents that look right are presumed right unless someone screams fraud. Then we can find out that the documents are fraudulent. I agree with Lehto that we should add something to the system to help with this, automated notifications to the current owner at a minimum. We could also make a phone app that the clerk uses to quickly confirm that the notary on the paper actually notarized a document at that date / time. Notaries would have to use the app to register and if the notary didn't, then the clerk would have to either call the notary or just not accept the document. It's certainly possible to make it better. We just haven't bothered.
@@lucrtrvl Most states don't have sales tax on real property. Some have a small transfer fee, and there's a title insurance requirement in a lot of states. The title insurance company SHOULD have blocked the transfer, but the courts have been loathe to actually hold title insurance companies responsible for crap like this. That's another thing we could do -- make the title insurance companies liable for not doing their job.
I live in Tampa, Florida and which is in Hillsborough County, the County Clerk of the Court offers a free program for Property Fraud Alerts just like you described. You can register individual or business names to be monitored and any time your name is connected with a document related to any property in the county you get an email or phone message about it with links to the documents in their system. Unfortunately they don't have an option to do it by property addresses so if there is more than one person in the area with the same name you submitted, you get the alert as well. But at least that lets you check and see if it is anything related to you or your property(ies).
I'm a notary, and have taken a very long course on real estate. This is absurd in so many ways. They even have a you tube course on paying someone's property taxes without their knowledge, then the house is theirs once bankruptcy hits the poor homeowner. Redick.
Theses sentences seem rather light to me. And it seems a bit to easy for the criminals to steal your property. Geez. Thanks for the notification tip. I'll follow up on that!
The notary system is antiquated to the point of obsolete. Unfortunately, the political class in this country is too ideologically rigid, corrupt, incompetent, or lazy to know or care enough to do anything about the onslaught of changes of these times. They don't do much beyond putting on shows about crap that either isn't real or doesn't matter. They're mostly morally and ethically vacant grifters.
I'm a resident of Far Rockaway. As soon has I heard "Beach 9th" i knew what was up. Never expected a story referencing Far Rockaway would make it here! Love your videos! Cheers!
This needs to change. People this crap happens to need to start suing the clerk’s offices responsible. Maybe they will care more if it starts costing the company money.
So much of our society depends on the honor system. I'm don't think the answer to this kind fraud is more regulation and red tape. Instead the penalties must become so severe to deter the fraudsters from even thinking of pulling this kind of stuff.
These scams work because we inherently trust people when the file. We are becoming such a low trist society though eventually these scams wont be possible
They need PRISON for years! Why is it we can get notice by text and email when someone logs into a bank account, but not this? And cars have registered owners. How are car thefts solved?
Cheaper to put a lien on property than pay for annual title lock service. Would keep your property from getting sold out from under you. Not sure how it would work in real life but sounds good in my head. LOL
Not a bad idea. Put a $50 mechanics lien on your own house, pay yourself at closing when you sell the land. Cost to file the lien at the county courthouse is about $10.
You could easily stamp (pun intended) out most fraudulent notarized documents by requiring notaries to register all notarized transactions in a governmental database. Then all a governmental official has to do is to check that database for the notaries name, date, that the title matches and an incrementing serial number, and other data makes sense. If something doesnt match, then there should be an investigation.
Ugh, I'm a notary loan signing agent and yes, it is easy to get a notary commission, but it's a little harder to become a loan signing agent. But yes, those who handle these documents regularly don't spend much time looking at them. These criminals had to at least have a working knowledge of the documents. Too bad for those notaries who don't keep a journal!
It's scary how a crook that knows the system can pull off some pretty big thefts and get a comparative slap on the wrist as punishment. So, the landscaper, who basically acted as a spotter, got the book thrown at him, while the former lawyer, who did the actual fraud, got off with a fine? I guess crime is legal if you're wealthy enough to pay the fines...heck, he probably even managed to turn a profit off of the whole deal. Maybe this is why the hole in the system exists. The state doesn't do their due diligence, then gets to rake in the fines when the fraud is eventually discovered. Meanwhile, since the fraudsters face such light penalties, and probably still turn a profit off of it, they're free to go back and do it again and again, long as they make sure to pay the fine each time they get caught. Everybody except the victims wins.
I assume they planned to flee the country after the first sale, which seems they didn't make ... because how could an attorney (even a disbarred one) think they wouldn't get caught on this one 🤣
my children are adopted from Guatemala and we had to have everything notarized AND CERTIFIED AND AUTHENTICATED One way to stop the amazon notary deal would be to make people certify the notary stamp at the county clerk
What is even worse is the local government taking your property to give to a local developer by eminent domain for more tax revenue, like what happened in the State of Connecticut a few years back (Kelo v. City of New London). The US SCOTUS said that it was OK and these houses were bulldozed. But the developer defaulted and left a big vacant lot. So nobody won. Nobody really owns their property in the USA. We rent the space by paying real estate taxes, HOAs, condo fees, etc. on top of just maintaining your property. Even if the mortgage is paid off. Property rights are a joke now. Government is even going after and suing for Trump's Tower and other of his real estates. Because of alleged real estate overvaluation in NY. Really? In NY, where rent is $5,600.00/month?
This happens with also land. My crooked cousin forged my mom signature and like 8 other cousin on a land to put it in her name. The notary was her former boyfriend. Everybody was mad and didn't push for criminal or civil action against her.
The worst part is I assume they won’t even do hard time for their scheme. Something like this should carry 25 to life. Hometheft is a very serious matter.
The Deed of Ownership should be a official document with two unique certificate numbers visible on both sides of the certificate and the existing certificate must be presented at the time there is a change of ownership. Copies of the certificate on internet access files is only of the front of the certificate!
Stamps are just that. They can be used to perpetuate fraud. By themselves they are not “counterfeit”. Anyone can make whatever stamp they want to, in very many US jurisdictions. Nothing wrong with that until it’s used fraudulent or unless it can be shown it was acquired during planning for. future crime.
Because Amazon (and really any online store) put it in their ToS that they're not responsible if anything happens, as it's not them selling the item. It's incredibly dumb and they should face some punishment.
@@absurdengineeringHowever, manufacturing notary seals for someone who isn’t a commissioned notary can be a crime in some jurisdictions. When I ordered my seals, I had to provide the certificate showing my commission from the Sec of State so the vendor could ensure the seals complied with North Carolina’s requirements and verify my details and commission if they had doubts. Could someone dummy up that cert? I’m sure they can as the relevant commission info is publicly available (we are notaries PUBLIC!) but it seems more hassle than it’s really worth.
I could be wrong, but I believe in New York that if you pass the bar exam, you also automatically are qualified to be a Notary Public. NYS Attorneys and court clerks of the Unified Court System are exempt from the Notary Public examination.
This is why the damn system has to be updated. I remember when this happened to one of my dads properties, we found out who was behind it... and well it didnt go well for the guy. People do these things because our system wont do much about it. But when they do it to the wrong individual, the government is the last thing that those crooks need to worry about lol.
We've lived at an HOA that was built on the 60s so was grandfathered past many new HOA regs. A new fella moved in & wanted to be HOA prez -- he was as all set to file new governing documents that would've cost each of us a ton of legal problems within the HOA paperwork and also with our individual deeds. Even well-intended filings could really mess up otherwise clean property deeds if the person doesn't understand the legalities of what they're filing.
Six months after buying my home, I noticed two women looking intently at my property. They then came to the door to ask me about the house being for sale. They said it had been listed on Craig's List. Sure enough, I found the ad on Craig's List, using the realtor pictures. I reported the ad to the listing site and I called my realtor and the lawyer who conducted the transfer. Luckily, nothing had occurred to challenge my ownership.
I was told that the best thing I could do is pay for title insurance. This really makes me mad. I've paid a lawyer to properly transfer title. I've paid fees and taxes to the registry. Why should I be made to line the insurance industries pockets because the title system won't bear full legal responsibility for exercising proper and rigorous oversight?
So sad. And guaranteed if something happened & you needed to use the title insurance you'd still be out lots of money for some bs reason. Such a scam.
good point.
Your realtor listed it on craigslist....because some buyers won't sign up to the mafia style MLS
My title company never transferred my title so Bank of America still owned my house for almost a year after I bought it. I figured it out because I hadn't received a property tax bill from the county because it was sent to California where BoA ignored it. Fortunately for me BoA never tried to sell the property a second time.
Normally if you close at a title company, title insurance is included in a bundled fee. My last one 2yrs ago was $645 and included these:
Closing protection Ltr
Endorsement - EPA
Endorsement - miscellaneous
Settlement - closing fee
Title - title insurance - lenders
So the lawyer gets away with 9 counts of what essentially amounts to grand theft (on a grand scale), impersonating an officer of the court, filing faise documents and a long list of other crimes by paying $58,000, while the landscaper gets 3 years imprisonment? What a joke. No wonder these scams are rampant. That lawyer should be doing serious jail time for EVERY one of those grand thefts, time served consequetively AND be ordered to pay EVERY one of those victims for ANY and ALL costs they have related to being robbed of their property, ie damages to or changes made to their property by parties the lawyer rented the properties to. Until these crooks are truly held responsible for these SERIOUS crimes, they will continue unabated. $58,000 is pocket change many lawyers.
Exactly! People get more time than that for stealing one car or one laptop. Stealing nine houses should both of them no less than a year per house.
I guess they were at least smart enough to go after properties where the owner had passed away.
I'm old, divorced, and don't have children. If someone did this to me while I'm still alive, I'll just say I'd have nothing left to lose if someone stole my home from underneath me.
You'd expect the lawyer to have known better than the landscaper how wrong and illegal his actions were. He should have received a far longer sentence and forfeit nearly all his worldly possessions
@@Shadow_Banned_ConservativeTell them you may have lost your home, but you still have enough money to rent a bulldozer.
These scams are not rampant. If they were, Steve wouldn't react as "well, this is technically possible, but unsure how widespread it is".
Why is anyone on Shamazon allowed to sell fake notary stamps? Go after whoever is selling that stuff, too.
Why does it feel like the guys who stole nine whole homes got less time than some people get for stealing a laptop or a $2,000 car?
Not just notary stamps. I do silversmithing, and I have a "925" and a "999" stamp to use on my work. Each cost about $10 on Amazon. I also let all my customers know that the stamp on the metal is only as trustworthy as the person holding the hammer, whether it be 925, 585, 14K, 18K, etc.
Ive always heard a law degree is a license to steal, this guy took that literally .
Man the amount of work they put into the Scams, they coulda gotten a real estate license and made the same money.
Or more
@@georgemead6608 it’s what kills me about all the scammers overseas. If the put half the effort into working properly that they do scamming people, the progress would be scary
@L337f33t ...but that is literally what real estate does. Legal theft is still theft
No, just no.
When everyone and their aunt is a realitor? Not likely
After Mom died so many people I didn't know, and pretty sure Mom didn't know either, showed up or called saying she had promised to sell the place to them, some of them even named a price that was well below market value. People can be pretty depressing sometimes.
It's gotten so bad that during the funeral you have to have somebody stay at the house to prevent break-ins
Written agreements rule. Verbal agreements are sus.
She should have sold it to them before she passed then. The executor of the estate does not have to honor undocumented verbal agreements that may or may not actually exist.
I would have asked each one for some form of proof that she actually made the promise. Not that I would intend to honor the supposed promise mind you. I would just be interested in seeing just how far these people would be willing to take it.
@@buttonsf3293 yep, they broke in and cleaned out my grandmother's house while we was having the funeral, stole everything except her old shoes
I just buried grandma a week before Christmas. Our family is pretty chill but we worried about the neighbor across the street trying to break in or someone trying to steal her African Grey or silverware.
When I was in the Navy, I had written a Sailor a 72 hour "sick in quarters" (SIQ) letter and stamped it with my name/rank/title, etc., and signed over it. Routine. Two weeks later, a unit Master Chief came to see me about the dozens of "SIQ" letters, giving half his squad 3 days off 😎 😂😂 thinking I was nuts. An enterprising Sailor was making $50 a letter that was a copy of my original. Except...my stamp was in red, not black from copying it. 😂 I love the ingenuity 😂😂
Had a shipmates who was recovering from having a boil on his butt drained. He was routinely asked to show his SIQ chit and his injury, that he taped the form to the outside of his rack and hung his bare butt outside the rack curtains.
@carrieking2247 I was challenged about actually having hernia surgery by my XO. I dropped my pants and boxers right in the middle of the morning meeting. I stood at attention just long enough for them to get the point. Don't challenge The Doc. 😄 😁
This is like when I was a draftee in Vietnam at a US Army Intelligence computer center in Saigon. We got two paid seven day leaves during a none year tour to cities like Hong Kong or Bangkok. We figured out that the approving officer didn't pass on his approval list to the replacement after his one-year tour. So, we (enlisted computer operators) filed two more 7-day leave requests with the new officer, he approved them., and we got two more trips. The military is full of loopholes like that. My supervising sergeant was using the Army phone system to trade captured rifles in the field for pallets of steaks liberated from trucks delivering them to military cafeterias. That is why I later became an anti-corruption manager in Iraq and Afghanistan on contracts.
Like semi's moving a box of nails?
This is why the whole notary system needs an overhaul. I found out how easy it was to become one years ago because I needed a notarized statement for a job. It was the most ridiculous thing ever but yeah...it was way too easy.
In some states you can only become a notary after a thorough background check, and fingerprinting. You also have to have your photo taken and take an extensive written test. You then have to renew your notary license every few years by retaking an updated notary test.
I live in Indiana and you have pass a background check, take a class and exam, buy a 25,000 surity bond and its good for 7 years. I have been thinking about getting my notery license.
next to the judicial system being controlled by 3 letter agencies along with private corporation prison systems...
Yup. I was friendly with a notary that I used to work with and she was more than happy to notarize and backdate something for me.
To be fair, how easy or difficult it is to become a notary has absolutely nothing to do with how these crimes were allowed to happen. After all, either way these crooks still would have been able to get the fake notary stamps online. And either way the documents still would have been casually accepted for filing. Furthermore, one of the guys used to be a lawyer and it’s a hell of a lot more difficult to become a lawyer than a notary but that still did not stop him. The point is that no matter how difficult it is to gain a certain position there are still always going to be some crooks in those positions.
I live in Canada but had to have a document notarized in the U.S. several years ago. What really caught my attention was that the notary kept a log book of every document that she notarized which I thought was a brilliant idea. After witnessing few hundred signature, it's unlikely that anyone would remember if they did or did not witness a particular one. And this log was the answer to that potential problem.
In the process of settling my mother's estate, the trust's lawyer and I made countless trips to a notary at the local mail box store. That notary kept a log book, and if I remember correctly, I had to sign the line in the book that pertained to our transaction. I also of course had to show my ID. A former co-worker of mine had become a notary to assist our employer with all the stuff he had to have notarized. She too kept a log. Based on this admittedly limited experience, I have always believed that keeping a log is standard practice.
@@CrankyBeach Speaking as a notary, yes this is standard practice. We need to protect ourselves as notaries, and so this is one of the ways we do this.
I've seen this done at my credit union too.
Believe that is a requirement of all notaries -- otherwise it would be trivial to forge the notary's signature. Their own log book is the ultimate proof the documents were actually properly signed and witnessed by them.
Checks and balances.
every legitimate notary public keeps a record of documents notarised by them. that's how those nortaries could confidently say they had never stamped the documents. just looked in their records for the date on the document in question.
I am a professional Electrical Engineer in CA. My PE stamp was $30 bought online with zero proof I am actually this person or that the info is correct. Welcome to the reality society is a house of cards.
Great topic! My Florida County's Court Clerk in Lake County, FL has a system to let homeowners register to be notified if ANY change is made in the home official documents.
Same for San Diego assessor
Mine in Broward County does too. Signed up for it as soon as they had made it available.
same in the county I live in PA
Same with NYC, you register with the county clerk. They send you something in the mail and email if something changes.
I remember a news story about a senior citizen scammed by the reverse mortgage company, it wasn't until her adult children found out and reported it to a tv network.
The senior woman had no idea what she had signed she thought it was for a loan to remodel her house.
Reverse mortgages are a scam for seniors. With all the fine print they are just a fancy second mortgage that (can) led to trouble in the future.
There was an woman in France who lived to be 115 or so. She made a deal to sell her house for a monthly payment for the rest of her life. The buyer had to make all repairs and she got to live there until she died. They signed the contract when she was about 70. She outlived both the buyer and his son (who kept up the payments, because she was something like 95 when his father died. lol)
My sister was an accountant and notary public for a builder. The owner's wife removed my sister's seal from the office safe and forged several documents.
It took over a year to straighten out the mess. The builder was put out of business. Even though not guilty of forging documents, my sister can never be a notary again. She can no longer be bonded. No company will take a chance.
If your a Notary buy a small lock box to hold your stamp and seal in a company's safe.
Don't give anyone access to the combination or key.
I'm a licensed land surveyor; I guard that stamp with my life.
Yup, my stamp stays with me and even a misprint of the stamp gets crossed out if I have to leave any documents.
It would go with me every time. Lock boxes, Small Safes, Locking Bank Bags are a Joke.
I needed a document notarized and was at the UPS store when it opened. A few minutes later, the notary walked in with her seal in a locked box.
An elderly physically-infirm buddy of mine had a problem something like this some decades ago --- a selfish sneaky lady who wanted to move to a different locale forged quit-claim-deed papers saying that my friend had signed over his home and property to her. The judge in the case was a notorious bum, and so he accepted the woman's bogus paperwork as final, and refused my friend's request to have a handwriting analysis performed to compare his signature with the writing on the forms. So my friend ended up homeless for a while, and never did get to move back into his home.
What bothers me is this is theft of several homes. Homes in NY have to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. This has to be grand theft or larceny, right? Only 3 years for possibly millions of dollars in theft?
I'm sure I'm missing something since I'm not a lawyer, but this just doesn't make sense.
They were gonna arrest, but then they got high... They would prosecute, but then they got high...
@@johnpublic6582 🤣
It was their first time, they're good boys they go to church every Sunday, it wouldn't be fair to ruin their lives for a foolish mistake, he takes care of his grandmother, they volunteer at a soup kitchen...
-
Don't care. Do serious time or let someone "express their NY discontent" some dark evening.
They need the room in jail for all those crazy dangerous potheads, obviously. Who cares if people are financially hurt and physically homeless because, watch out! Marcus has the munchies, it's all hands on deck, we got em boys!
The fines also sound ludicrously low for the huge payout they would have gotten if someone actually bought even one of the stolen homes off of them. At a minimum they probably would have been looking at a $400,000+ profit per property, but possibly much more then that.
I used to work at a title company and one of the Title Officers once told me a story of a guy who, just to show he easily it is to get around the system, used a metes and bounds legal description to deed himself a 1" square "parcel" in the middle of Lake Tahoe.
What a perfect partnership. One to chase the ambulance and the other to cover up the evidence.
So courts just blindly accept paperwork that looks legit on a cursory examination... but when I tried to do my own extremely-uncomplicated divorce in California 25 years ago, I was well into double digits on paperwork being rejected because some obscure "i" was not dotted or a "t" crossed. And it took the double digits' worth of "green sheets" for someone to finally notice the ever-thickening stack of green paper in my file and ask me if I'd been to the advocate's office. No, I hadn't, because nobody bothered to actually tell me that there was a person right down the hall whose job it was to help people like me with their paperwork. The whole process would have been a lot easier for me if the courts blindly accepted paperwork back then as they apparently do now. And those gas-hogging double digits' worth of 1-hour round trips to the courthouse and back would not have been necessary and cost me all that gas money.
That is what happened
They still ream everyone, nothing has changed except the hourly costs are closer to $500 an hour (and they wonder why Americans are so angry after years of being trapped in the “English Law Legacy” of corruption.
Why is the lawyer facing paying fines but the landscaper is facing jail time?
Apparently he agreed to reverse the deeds back to the rightful owners as part of the plea agreement. 🙄
Definitely more to this story.
I remember reading an article about something like this happening near me. This is pretty frightening because you might not know that someone took your home and if you're too elderly or sick it might feel almost impossible to deal with
My hope is that karma gets them in the end, and that karma comes packaged as a victim with a need for vengeance and nothing to lose.
At least the people got their homes back. When a lawyer in my hometown did something similar, everyone involved was just outta luck. Except for the lawyer himself, of course. While it was common knowledge that he was a crook, he targeted homeowners who couldn't afford to take him to court, he was friends with the Police Chief and he worked for the town, so the extent of his crimes weren't confirmed until after he died and his files went to another lawyer. Even then, nothing was done about it.
Years ago, I got a box full of notary stamps from state of Michigan that were misdirected...
A law office in my state had a secretary who was not a notary notarizing documents. Upon futher investigation there was no law on the books that made this illegal. The laws were changed.
Did the notary have a fake notary stamp? The notary stamp has to have the notary name and notary license number on it, along with the expiration date of the notary license.
@@300books She had her name and a fake number from what I understand -- that's all that is required in my state, typed name and number. The stamp looked legitimate.
EDIT: Actually, it was another notary's number.
@@300books It was a really interesting case because the fake notary worked for a VIP -- the DA of the county, as I recall. She didn't get in trouble because there was no law on the books against it and they argued her actions had hurt no one, so she got away with it.
@@KabobHope . Shocking! This woman commits fraud, holds herself out to be a notary-licensed individual when she's not. What next, fake driver's license which will be OK as long as you don't hurt anyone? Terrible laws out there!
@@KabobHope Except that her actions and those of the attorneys who allowed it to happen did cause harm to the people of their state.
The whole point of the notary system is to ensure that legal documents have been properly signed and that the processes for determining the identity of the signers are who they say they are when we sign off on it and apply our seal.
If there is no confidence in the legitimacy of the signatures on the documents, then the courts and business are dramatically impacted and have to spend valuable time and money duplicating the job I was commissioned to do.
There are still ways for bad actors to game the system. Fake photo IDs…but if I have doubts about the ID presented, the parties before me, or if I’ve got any feelings the transaction is dodgy, I have the right to refuse to notarise the document.
They may well find someone else who will but I will not willingly destroy the trust the system is intended to bring to legal transactions and documents.
In the state of Georgia Quit Claim Deeds are the most rampant form of property theft in the state by far. No verification is required for a Quit Claim Deed to be accepted. It is very hard to have it reversed as well. A travelers family used a Quit Claim Deed to move into a $700,000 home in a neighborhood near mine and it took years after the discovery before the rightful owners were able to obtain ownership of their property and have the travelers family removed from the home.
That's interesting never hears that.
EXACTLY! Citizens have to pay and pay and pay to get any justice in the United States. And they wonder why we hate these sociopaths running our “legal”system. What a joke, the judges and attorneys need to be taken down a few pegs! Crazy money making schemes called “legal industry”. Medical & Legal should not be industrialized against their people.
Why not just do the same as the scammers and file a Quit Claim Deed transferring it back to your ownership? Worked for the scammers it should work for owners who had it transferred from them. who would stop it? No one stopped the scammers so no one would stop the true owners. I would at least try it.
@@robert5 Two wrongs don't make a right.
Think; Would you really file fraudulent paperwork?
Law enforcement would prosecute you and the scammer for the same crime (of filing fraudulent paperwork).
@@caLLLendar The authorities will barely bother with these supposed crimes unless you dog the hell outa them. This is why this is happening. Cops will tell you it is a legal matter so get a lawyer and sue in court. So cops are gonna bust in with guns drawn and cuff me because I take "my" house back? I would take that chance.
How this becomes a “nightmare” is a curiosity. It’s not a nightmare when it’s clear cut fraud, theft, and illegitimate.
Insurance companies will now charge us extra for this type of protection... just wait and see.
It's already out there. For a price.
It’s called title insurance.
@@karenneill9109 No, title insurance only is when you purchase a home. There is another insurance that takes care of deed fraud.
So theoretically I could go down to my County Courthouse and just start filing liens on all the properties in my County in hopes that statistically I get a pay day when they transfer ownership? Wow! Kinda unbelievable!
My mom was sending out false divorce papers that said dad was assuming all her debts up to the date of the divorce being finalized.
I guess hers were fake enough Kia's regional finance guy looked at the front page of the real copy, chucked her fakes in the trash, and walked away.
If your state allows it, file a "Transfer on Death" deed on your property.
The lawyer has to pay back ill gotten games and the landscaper goes to prison. No surprise there.
Here in CA if anything happens with the title they send a letter to your house and USPS has this wonderful feature on their site where they'll send you an email with all letters that are going to be receiving each day, so if you set that up and notice you're supposed to get a letter from the county you might want to see what its about.
In NYS, a licensed attorney in good standing could simply apply to be a notary. I started law school later in life than most of my classmates and graduated in two and a half years at the top 8% of my class. After passing the NYS bar exam the first try and being sworn in, when people asked why I decided to become an attorney, my response was that I did not think I could pass the notary exam.
REEEeee 🧂🧂🧂🧂
Attourneys in good standing???
That narrows it down
In the UK it is actually worst. There is one form to be completed and sent to the land registry. To transfer ownership of a property and it is normally signed by the solicitor. But anyone can complete the form and sign it.
I love how many issues could be avoided if the courts (i.e., the clerks of court) actually cared and were responsible for what gets legally recorded in their official records. Why make it your problem when you can have the goon squad punish the plebs instead, and ignore the plight of owners of the property you helped facilitate the theft of? It's easier that way.
I don't want Florida's (60+) Clerk of the Courts to have police powers. Also, giving them the responsibility to verify all recorded documents would just jack up the cost of recording anything and huge time delays. Bad idea in Florida. No thanks.
Then no recorded document should be considered final until the 'selling' party has been reached via the existing phone number and verifies the transfer.@@Times_Ticking
Bureaucrats are only interested in their paychecks, their holidays, their benefits, and you and your concerns just get in the way of collecting all that.
They are bored beyond belief, bound to be terrified of getting fired and do not care about anything but quitting time.
The VP Pence school of being a clerk and just counting the numbers and not looking at even the obvious signs of fraud.
I made a previous comment on another one of Lehto's law video that was related to a very similar situation. I live in St Petersburg, FL (Pinellas County). The county Property appraiser has a very simple system to protect people from this type of scam. Any and all real estate transactions that come through the property appraisers' office require that an email be sent to the owner of the property that there is some type of activity occuring on the property they own. As far as I know, there has never been a property scam in Pinellas County.
🤣 Massive paper trail -- how did they think they'd ever get away with this?
A landscaper and a lawyer scam eventually evicts someone from their home. You don’t understand. They don’t want to straighten it out. Too much money to be made unethically.
It sounded like the lawyer also was the landscaper. Odd combo, I thought. But plausible because it's hard to earn a decent living as an attorney. With the exception of Mr. Leto ...
@@MLenninger It could be that the lawyer was in the place to do all of the legal paperwork, while the landscaper did the looking for houses. Being a landscaper gives you a very good excuse to go door-to-door, knocking on doors, checking if people live there, and contacting property owners. The lawyer might also want a landscaper to clean up the yard before sale to make it look more legit and increase the price. Some people might be more nervous about buying a house if the front and backyard look like a small jungle.
I used to work tech in a fraud department and part of my job for onboarding clients would be to verify notaries; Philadelphia was especially difficult since at the time, they embossed their documents which would not show via a photo copy
Nobody ever checks the notary unless someone challenges the signature
True. If the document is notarized it is presumed the notarization is valid. It can even be used as evidence in a case.
@@KabobHope my dad used to forge my name and forge the notary because he knew I wouldn’t challenge the signature lol…
@@KabobHopea notarization is just proof that the signing was witnessed -- it doesn't prove whether anything in the document itself is fraudulent or not.
The notarization is simply official proof that person W, signed paper X, at time Y -- signing witnessed by notary Z.
Notary's don't type up contracts or deeds or anything like that.
The fraud committed here was the attorney was forging the deceased victim's signature, and also forging the notary as the witness to that signing.
Victim's family calls BS and goes to the notary to verify the signing actually happened -- notary looks in their own records and confirms everyone's signature is forged.
Just watched 99 Homes on Netflix. Creativity in Real estate never ceases to amaze me!!
We are selling a property in Nevada and we did receive a US mail letter giving us notice from the title company informing us that someone was trying to sell the property and to notify them immediately if we were not selling the property.
I was almost killed for my notary stamp last year on December 24th. OSP officers are in on the racketeering going on in the biker gangs here in Oregon. NO ONE BELIEVED ME. Most terrifying experience of my entire life.
The police… when dirty… destroy our society and our country… they turn their face from child molestation, drug running( participants) , and other forms of racketeering… we have officially arrived in a banana republic… corrupt government, corrupt FBI, DOJ, CIA, and now police.
If that's true did you call the FBI
Seriously? @@stoneyswolf
@@westerncherokeewireless642if they move between states that is not a bad idea
@stoneyswolf yes. Twice. They even called me back. Once. I also filed a DPSST report and reported it to multiple law enforcement agencies, the DA, my governor, and my state representatives. Even the Secretary of State who ISSUED me my certificate and highly urged us to report all fraud. I got Crickets. Absolutely just crickets. I even filed stalking orders against the folks in the initial situation. I've been pretty much in hiding ever since. Use a different name, cut ties to my original social media accounts and emails, and I still check to make sure I'm not being followed and that I'm always aware of my surroundings.
I can’t believe this would actually work… In my state notarization isn’t just stamping the document itself. You also get an entry in a big book that the notary must enter the time, date, and (I believe) your driver’s license number or whatever ID you show them, and sometimes there needs to be a witness as well. I assume this is so you can’t just go around notarizing documents with a notary seal you bought on amazon.
I assume if this happened in my state you would summon the notary to court and ask to see the matching entry. Just the date alone would probably be a huge gamble. What are the chances that the fake notary would have a legit date in the book where the victim was not dead, out of state, or have another plausible alibi.
I’m also hard pressed to understand how these scammers would prove that actual funds changed hands. Like what, they just paid the guy in cash, and there is absolutely no record of hundreds of thousands of dollars changing hands?
Another thing that happens in my state… When a house is sold, the state is very keen on receiving tax proceeds for the transaction. That is usually handled by the lawyer’s office, I believe, that handles the closing, at the closing.
I just can’t believe none of that has to happen in NY. That seems nuts to me.
How long do you think it takes in court processes, attorney fees to stop a criminal from trying to steal your home???
Would you believe, ten years!!!😮Yep, had to take it to the State Appellate Court, because the person trying to steal my home hired an attorney that was “besties” with a corrupt judge.🎯
Of course it works -- all the steps you describe are way too much for the millions of homes transferred each year and only happen if someone challenges it. Documents that look right are presumed right unless someone screams fraud. Then we can find out that the documents are fraudulent. I agree with Lehto that we should add something to the system to help with this, automated notifications to the current owner at a minimum. We could also make a phone app that the clerk uses to quickly confirm that the notary on the paper actually notarized a document at that date / time. Notaries would have to use the app to register and if the notary didn't, then the clerk would have to either call the notary or just not accept the document. It's certainly possible to make it better. We just haven't bothered.
I was wondering about sales taxes as well. Did the crooks pay the sales taxes when transferring the houses to their own names?
@@lucrtrvl Most states don't have sales tax on real property. Some have a small transfer fee, and there's a title insurance requirement in a lot of states. The title insurance company SHOULD have blocked the transfer, but the courts have been loathe to actually hold title insurance companies responsible for crap like this. That's another thing we could do -- make the title insurance companies liable for not doing their job.
I live in Tampa, Florida and which is in Hillsborough County, the County Clerk of the Court offers a free program for Property Fraud Alerts just like you described. You can register individual or business names to be monitored and any time your name is connected with a document related to any property in the county you get an email or phone message about it with links to the documents in their system. Unfortunately they don't have an option to do it by property addresses so if there is more than one person in the area with the same name you submitted, you get the alert as well. But at least that lets you check and see if it is anything related to you or your property(ies).
I wonder if anyone has ever appeared in court pretending to be some one else to help perpetrate a fraud?
Yes , it has happened. While trying to murder the original person to cover up crime.
i have to sey, 3 years for these crimes sounds like quite a short time. also the amount beeing forced to pay sounds small to.
Why become a thief when there are so many ways to steal legally..😂 (a lawyers quote)
I'm a notary, and have taken a very long course on real estate. This is absurd in so many ways. They even have a you tube course on paying someone's property taxes without their knowledge, then the house is theirs once bankruptcy hits the poor homeowner. Redick.
They put an extraordinary amount of effort in getting away with their crimes.
Theses sentences seem rather light to me. And it seems a bit to easy for the criminals to steal your property. Geez. Thanks for the notification tip. I'll follow up on that!
In my state all attorneys are considered notaries, and they don't even have to take the otherwise standard notary training class.
In my state they are automatically realtor brokers.
Ha! Wa state doesn't have notary training
Love the Dayton Hamvention shirt! Thanks for supporting the HAM Radio Operators!!
The notary system is antiquated to the point of obsolete. Unfortunately, the political class in this country is too ideologically rigid, corrupt, incompetent, or lazy to know or care enough to do anything about the onslaught of changes of these times. They don't do much beyond putting on shows about crap that either isn't real or doesn't matter. They're mostly morally and ethically vacant grifters.
No matter how good the system, there is always someone looking for an angle.
A scam where the paper trail leads to you sounds like a bad idea.
Reminds me of cryptocurrencies too: massive paper trail tracking everything you've bought / sold.
Criminals are dumb.
I'm a resident of Far Rockaway. As soon has I heard "Beach 9th" i knew what was up. Never expected a story referencing Far Rockaway would make it here! Love your videos! Cheers!
This needs to change. People this crap happens to need to start suing the clerk’s offices responsible. Maybe they will care more if it starts costing the company money.
Clerk's Office is in your local county courthouse most likely.
I am a notary and its scary that they can get a hold of a stamp with anyones name.
Amazon should be sued for selling fake notary stamps.
Next thing, Amazon will be selling bathroom spy-cams.
Oh wait
One and done!
Ha!
What makes you think that they don't sell bathroom spy cameras already?
@@Old_Foxy_Grandpa sorry my comment went over your head
So much of our society depends on the honor system. I'm don't think the answer to this kind fraud is more regulation and red tape. Instead the penalties must become so severe to deter the fraudsters from even thinking of pulling this kind of stuff.
I signed up for notifications from my county if any activity happens on my deed. Better than nothing.
Those Notary stamps were available on Ebay at least 10 years ago.
Plus, there are shady Notary's out there.
He's not a landscaper, he's a landscammer!
States need to establish official digital signature repositories. That would make it far harder to falsify seals and signatures.
Until it inevitably gets hacked and all those signatures get out for sale on the internet.
The illusion that authority is absolute is the biggest fault in our system.
These scams work because we inherently trust people when the file. We are becoming such a low trist society though eventually these scams wont be possible
They need PRISON for years!
Why is it we can get notice by text and email when someone logs into a bank account, but not this? And cars have registered owners. How are car thefts solved?
Learned another something today, courtesy of Steve Lehto!!!
HAPY NEW YEAR, Mr. LEHTO!
Cheaper to put a lien on property than pay for annual title lock service. Would keep your property from getting sold out from under you. Not sure how it would work in real life but sounds good in my head. LOL
Not a bad idea. Put a $50 mechanics lien on your own house, pay yourself at closing when you sell the land.
Cost to file the lien at the county courthouse is about $10.
You should have to show up at the county building w/state id to transfer anything.
You could easily stamp (pun intended) out most fraudulent notarized documents by requiring notaries to register all notarized transactions in a governmental database. Then all a governmental official has to do is to check that database for the notaries name, date, that the title matches and an incrementing serial number, and other data makes sense. If something doesnt match, then there should be an investigation.
Ah found my true career. Thanks Leto! I think i will put a lean on the White House.
Ugh, I'm a notary loan signing agent and yes, it is easy to get a notary commission, but it's a little harder to become a loan signing agent. But yes, those who handle these documents regularly don't spend much time looking at them. These criminals had to at least have a working knowledge of the documents. Too bad for those notaries who don't keep a journal!
It's scary how a crook that knows the system can pull off some pretty big thefts and get a comparative slap on the wrist as punishment. So, the landscaper, who basically acted as a spotter, got the book thrown at him, while the former lawyer, who did the actual fraud, got off with a fine? I guess crime is legal if you're wealthy enough to pay the fines...heck, he probably even managed to turn a profit off of the whole deal.
Maybe this is why the hole in the system exists. The state doesn't do their due diligence, then gets to rake in the fines when the fraud is eventually discovered. Meanwhile, since the fraudsters face such light penalties, and probably still turn a profit off of it, they're free to go back and do it again and again, long as they make sure to pay the fine each time they get caught. Everybody except the victims wins.
Not enough jail time!
I assume they planned to flee the country after the first sale, which seems they didn't make ... because how could an attorney (even a disbarred one) think they wouldn't get caught on this one 🤣
Pass a law with $10k+ fine for falsifying records/statements for property sales; setup a bait house, rack in profits; beats speed traps.
Crime never sleeps.
Too bad evaporust can't help with this one.
my children are adopted from Guatemala and we had to have everything notarized AND CERTIFIED AND AUTHENTICATED One way to stop the amazon notary deal would be to make people certify the notary stamp at the county clerk
What is even worse is the local government taking your property to give to a local developer by eminent domain for more tax revenue, like what happened in the State of Connecticut a few years back (Kelo v. City of New London). The US SCOTUS said that it was OK and these houses were bulldozed. But the developer defaulted and left a big vacant lot. So nobody won.
Nobody really owns their property in the USA. We rent the space by paying real estate taxes, HOAs, condo fees, etc. on top of just maintaining your property. Even if the mortgage is paid off. Property rights are a joke now. Government is even going after and suing for Trump's Tower and other of his real estates. Because of alleged real estate overvaluation in NY. Really? In NY, where rent is $5,600.00/month?
Why is there no resolution in the courts and or laws to prevent this !!!!
Thanks for sharing this so we can all be on the lookout👍🏽
This happens with also land. My crooked cousin forged my mom signature and like 8 other cousin on a land to put it in her name.
The notary was her former boyfriend. Everybody was mad and didn't push for criminal or civil action against her.
The worst part is I assume they won’t even do hard time for their scheme. Something like this should carry 25 to life. Hometheft is a very serious matter.
How does the homeowner protect themselves
Get title insurance. Keep your home occupied.
I believe this may have happened to me involving my property.
Most notaries in my area also keep a log of what they have used their stamp for.
The Deed of Ownership should be a official document with two unique certificate numbers visible on both sides of the certificate and the existing certificate must be presented at the time there is a change of ownership. Copies of the certificate on internet access files is only of the front of the certificate!
How is Amazon allowed to sell counterfeit stamps?
It's amazon. They would sell your counterfeit mother if they thought they could get away with it - and they do.
Stamps are just that. They can be used to perpetuate fraud. By themselves they are not “counterfeit”. Anyone can make whatever stamp they want to, in very many US jurisdictions. Nothing wrong with that until it’s used fraudulent or unless it can be shown it was acquired during planning for. future crime.
Because Amazon (and really any online store) put it in their ToS that they're not responsible if anything happens, as it's not them selling the item. It's incredibly dumb and they should face some punishment.
@@absurdengineeringHowever, manufacturing notary seals for someone who isn’t a commissioned notary can be a crime in some jurisdictions.
When I ordered my seals, I had to provide the certificate showing my commission from the Sec of State so the vendor could ensure the seals complied with North Carolina’s requirements and verify my details and commission if they had doubts.
Could someone dummy up that cert? I’m sure they can as the relevant commission info is publicly available (we are notaries PUBLIC!) but it seems more hassle than it’s really worth.
"We're too big to possibly vet all the things our sellers sell!"
I could be wrong, but I believe in New York that if you pass the bar exam, you also automatically are qualified to be a Notary Public. NYS Attorneys and court clerks of the Unified Court System are exempt from the Notary Public examination.
A lot of things can be exploited if you don't care about consequences
I bought some from a garage sale.
Can a disbarred attorney be disbarred from being a disbarred attorney?
The only bar this guy will be seeing is prison bars
Double secret disbarment
No, but I have a bar I'd like to introduce him to.
The whole home buying system needs to be scrapped and a new system put in place with security in place...
This is why the damn system has to be updated. I remember when this happened to one of my dads properties, we found out who was behind it... and well it didnt go well for the guy. People do these things because our system wont do much about it. But when they do it to the wrong individual, the government is the last thing that those crooks need to worry about lol.
WTF i tought those were felonies? I have m moms notory stuff. I can jsut steal houses?
It's a little early for April fools 😆
We've lived at an HOA that was built on the 60s so was grandfathered past many new HOA regs. A new fella moved in & wanted to be HOA prez -- he was as all set to file new governing documents that would've cost each of us a ton of legal problems within the HOA paperwork and also with our individual deeds. Even well-intended filings could really mess up otherwise clean property deeds if the person doesn't understand the legalities of what they're filing.
Notaries in Missouri keep a logbook of each document notarized. I'm sure other states do as well