Deed thieves use sham companies to hide their identities
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Fraudsters are using sham limited liability companies that shield their identities in order to obtain properties without the knowledge or full understanding of the owners.
Investigators with New York City’s finance department are investigating 120 cases, but that could be just the tip of the iceberg, lawyers who represent deed fraud victims tell the New York Times. They say law enforcement agencies are overwhelmed because it’s so difficult to find the fraudsters.
Some fraudsters search legal notices for delinquent mortgages and then dupe the homeowners into signing over their deeds. Others forge homeowners’ signatures. The thieves “hide behind inscrutable mazes of limited liability companies, rented post office boxes and fake addresses,” the article says.
Lawyer Jennifer Sinton of South Brooklyn Legal Services is representing Ozella Campbell, who says she signed over the deed to her house to a company that promised to pay her delinquent mortgage; find her a place to live; and pay her nearly $44,000. She now has a delinquent $529,000 mortgage. Her home is owned by a company called Jefferson Holding LLC.
“Sham LLCs are a huge problem in terms of their lack of transparency, in terms of who is behind the property and who is behind these schemes,” Sinton told the Times.
Campbell says the man who made the promises called himself Alex. He moved her to an unheated garage converted into an apartment; she was notified by city workers that she will have to leave because the apartment is too dangerous for habitation.
A city investigator believes “Alex” is a man who signed some documents for Johnson Holdings, Arash Noghreh. He has been indicted on charges of grand larceny and filing false documents. His lawyer told the Times that Nogreh kept his promises by paying Campbell more than $40,000. Court filings by the lawyer, Roger Stavis, call the charges against Noghreh “demonstrably false.”
