A man died, meaning that his house would have gone to his sister, who was his next of kin. Instead, Javon Waldon produced a signed, notarized document showing that the deceased had transferred title of the home to Waldon for free. The notary, Alfrenecia Perkins, could not possibly have identified the man signing the quit claim deed. He had been dead for a week.
The whole thing started a two year mess that caused the state to uncover that Waldon had been stealing homes by forging deeds for years. Still, they weren’t going to press charges until the Orlando media got ahold of the story. Finally, Waldon pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years in prison.
Meanwhile, the stolen home had been sold to an investor. The investor insisted that he owned the home. The sister claimed that she was the rightful owner. Complicating the issue, the decedent’s nephew was living in the home and had been evicted by the investor.
All of this came to a head when the courts had to decide who was the rightful owner of the home. No matter what was decided, someone is losing some money. The ownership of the home has still not been decided because the sister is a moron who didn’t hire a lawyer.
The title insurance company is gonna take the hit on this one, in my opinion. The notary should also be charged with a crime, and her bonding company should have to pay out some money as well.
7 Comments
Toastrider · March 8, 2023 at 2:34 pm
While I would offer sympathy to the investor, I believe the laws are pretty clear regarding receipt of stolen property: you’re not allowed to keep it. Theft by fraud is still theft.
Big Ruckus D · March 8, 2023 at 6:30 pm
Welcome to hell, where real property title defects – whether by incompetence or blatant fraud – will eventually put large swathes of property at risk of being stolen out from under the rightful owners. That the sister didn’t hire a lawyer is immaterial, the court having jurisdiction has an obligation to make it right in light of what was established theft by fraud. And what of all the other properties this asshole stole?
This brings back infuriating memories of the revelation during the last big housing crisis circa 2008 of how MERS (mortgage electronic registration systems) had massively fucked up chain of title on scores of properties by failing to follow legal requirements.
To my knowledge this was never really corrected, but swept under the rug such that the banks and title companies simply pretended it was all ok and went on about business as usual.
Toastrider · March 8, 2023 at 8:29 pm
If I recall, a number of those banks and companies quietly settled with the de facto homeowners because there was no way to prove one way or the other who had ownership. Doesn’t surprise me that it was swept under the rug because it would’ve raised all sorts of fun questions about the banks’ management and document-control practices.
Big Ruckus D · March 8, 2023 at 9:22 pm
I no longer remember exactly all the finer points of what was done to memory hole the issues, but I do remember reading extensively about it at the time. Karl Denninger at Market Ticker blog (among others) wrote about it in great detail when it was revealed just how badly they had botched things up.
There was really no choice but to engage in a wholesale cover up, otherwise the resulting issues over establishing proper title to probably millions of homes would’ve called their ownership into to question, and the resulting litigation likely would have taken decades to clear out of the system.
There have been so many more pernicious scams and outrages that have taken place since then, that it almost doesn’t matter. Just another component of the fact that the entirety of the economic and legal systems of the United States have been built on fraud and fiction, and are no longer fit for purpose.
Honk Honk · March 9, 2023 at 12:31 am
But, but, but, the government will fix it?
Divemedic · March 9, 2023 at 7:14 am
Government is seldom the answer. In this case, they and the banks created the issue.
Steve · March 9, 2023 at 8:59 pm
Just as with “stolen” identity, this has an easy, correct answer, which the government being what it is will never, ever consider.
Just as with credit card scams, by definition, due diligence had not been performed. There’s probably not a single investor or mortgagor who has not heard about social security number scams and quit claim deed scams and the like. That’s why things like CreditGuard even exist. Clearly, whatever process they are using is not sufficiently duly diligent.
Banksters taking it in the shorts a few times would be all it would take for them to figure out a more foolproof means of assuring themselves they were not being defrauded. And that, boys and girls, is why government will never take that path. It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.
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