Homeowners are falling victim to title theft, where scammers are selling your home right out from under you. Maricopa County is rolling out a new alert system for the fraud on the rise.
Debi Gotlieb showed ABC15 her late father's home in Scottsdale. It means more to her now since she had to fight to get it back.
"I had the deed in hand. It was signed 'Jerry Gotlieb November 12, 2019.' My dad died a year and a half before, March of 2018, and I'm like, 'This is not my father," said Gotlieb. "I typed in his address. This is December 19 of 2019 and Zillow's name was on the deed, and it had been on the market for a day."
Pictures had already been posted online. Gotlieb drove over to the Scottsdale home, that very same day, but the locks had been changed. Once she was able to get inside, she realized it had been cleaned out.
"Everything my dad owned was gone," says Gotlieb.
Detectives got involved soon after and were able to track down the fraudster who had sold the home to Zillow.
"First thing they did was they went to the notaries. He'd signed in California. In California, they take a fingerprint; here, we do not. They got a hit," said Gotlieb.
ABC15 reached out to the Arizona Association of Realtors to find out how this scam is being done.
"We've seen an increase, I think because now we do electronic recordings, right? We used to... you had a real person that took your ID and, you know, and notarized the deed, and then a real person took that notarized paper to the county's recorder and recorded it, usually through the title company," said Michelle Lind.
Fraudsters are getting a hold of a deed and falsifying a signature. On top of that, the notary is never verified. Lucas Clark said he literally stumbled upon a similar situation.
"My buddy was looking on Craigslist and found this place. It looked amazing - $1,200 a month," said Clark.
The scammer showed documents of "so-called" proof to his friend, but things seemed off. So, Clark's friend asked him to go check the place out and a woman answered the door.
"'Are you renting your place?' And she was just bewildered, and she goes, 'No, I own this condo,'" said Clark.
Gotlieb is now working to change laws, hoping to shut down the scam before it ever happens.
"We need to have fingerprints taken. I would like somebody to look at the document and even make sure that the notary is still a notary," says Gotlieb.
Maricopa County just launched a new tool that alerts homeowners once someone records a document using your name. It allows you to act faster against the scammer.
