For those of you that work in the real estate or title industry, you know that there have been all kinds of scams related to real estate for ages. This is nothing new.
What is new, at least to me, is the moniker, “Title Pirates”. I love that name. I think it captures the essence of what is being attempted all over the world every day by these scurvy dogs.
I wanted to share my first experience with a Title Pirate in hopes that you may avoid being targeted similarly. Sorry it is a little long—but hang in there. It could save you, or someone else a lot of money and pain.
A few weeks ago, I received a message from a friend and colleague who works in residential real estate within the Keller Williams family. He said that he had received a call from a gentleman via a Zillow post for one of his other properties he had listed for sale. The caller told him that he was looking for an agent to list his property for sale in Garden City, Idaho. The property was a roughly .61 acre lot with no structures on the property. The referring agent told me that he had spoken with the gentleman a couple of times and he seemed very motivated to sell the property.
I know the re-development market in Garden City is very active and values have risen dramatically in the past few years, so a motivated seller of potential development land in this market is definitely a welcome referral! I immediately called and spoke with the referral, who we will call “Bob” (names changed to protect the innocent). Bob told me that he was looking to sell the property “aggressively” and that he really preferred to secure a “cash sale”. At this point, I am thinking to myself, “cool—this could be a nice quick deal”. I told Bob that I was going to drive by the property, do some research to find out what the comps looked like for the area, and that I would be back in touch with him that afternoon.
I started digging into the property and noticed that the adjacent property was also owned by the same entity and it appeared from the aerial satellite images that both of them were vacant, and both were fenced off together as one open storage yard for what appeared to be a landscape or rock placing company with large boulders stored around the perimeter of the lots. There is a building on the third lot next to these two and online it shows a landscape company name as the business in that location. Even though the third lot with the building was owned by a different entity, I thought that perhaps they may be related since the fencing seems to span all three lots and the landscape company appears to be using all three lots.
Thinking to myself that if he is motivated to sell the one lot, perhaps I might be able to sell both or even all three of these contiguous parcels for him as a larger redevelopment site, I excitedly called Bob to ask if he would consider selling the other lot(s). When I asked the question, he was quiet for a moment like he was considering the idea for the first time. I kept talking to break the silence and told him that a larger parcel would be more attractive and that if we could package them together, we would likely get more money per acre. He let me know that he didn’t really care as much about the price as he did that we were able to find an all cash buyer very quickly and that was the most important thing to him.
I asked, “Bob, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you so motivated to sell quickly” and “why is a cash sale important to you?” trying to better understand his motivation. He told me that he had recently been diagnosed with terminal colon cancer and he was currently undergoing very expensive treatment and he needed money to pay for the treatments. I told him that I would continue working on the values and be back in touch with him shortly.
Bob and I texted back and forth with a few questions that he answered for me over the next 24-48 hours as I spoke with appraisers, and pulled comps for the properties. In the back of my mind, or maybe it was more in my gut, I started to feel like something was off. My Spidey senses were tingling.
To make myself feel better, I asked if we could meet in person to go over my findings and determine the price with which he would be willing to list the property for sale. His response was, “I am out of state; I don’t reside in the area. I’m currently undergoing chemotherapy for my colon cancer at a health facility in Texas. This is why I’m looking to sell my lot for medical bills”.
It was not one specific thing that started to make me think something might be off—it was more a combination of all of the interactions. Bob used some words that I recognized to be a little out of the norm, like “kindly” and “reside”. He had a Lakeland Florida phone number, the address on title was a Nampa, Idaho address for the owner, and he claimed to be living in Texas?
At this point, I sent him a message that read, “Okay. Can you send me a copy of your driver’s license?...my broker prefers that we confirm you are in fact the owner of the property”. He asked me to give him a moment to find his ID and take a photo. Two and a half hours later, voila, he sent me a photo of a VERY convincing looking Idaho Driver’s license with all the correct dates, addresses and names that matched what was on title, and photo that looked about like I imagined Bob might look in my head. The ID card was an older ID (not a star card) but it didn’t expire until 2025, so I went and found my old ID that was from the same timeframe to compare and it made me think this was a legitimate ID, which therefore made me think maybe I was over thinking this.
I used some online services to try to find phone numbers for the owner that was listed on title to see if I could confirm his identity that way. I called 7 or 8 numbers that were found online and struck out on all of them. I was feeling a little defeated.
I was not really sure what to do at this point. I talked with my broker, talked with a few title industry folks who hear lots of wire fraud scam stories. Most people thought it sounded fishy at best and told me to just ignore him. Me being a die hard, don’t lose, work every deal until it has been completely ruled out as an option kind of person, I just couldn’t leave it there.
I told him I was out of the office for a couple of days because we were backpacking in the Mt. Rainier National Forrest (which was true) and that I would be in touch when I returned.
Upon my return, I decided that I would try calling the landscape company that appeared to be occupying the property to see if they knew how to reach the owner. I called the number from the web for the landscaper and a gentleman answered. I said, “Hello, my name is Gregg Davis. I am a commercial real estate agent in the Treasure Valley and I am calling because I have a person who claims to be the owner of the lot you occupy in Garden City. The gentleman wants me to list the property for sale, and I am just trying to confirm that the person I have been speaking with is the actual owner of the property. Do you have a phone number for the property owner? Or, alternatively, would you be willing to reach out to the owner and give them my phone number and have them call me so that I can discuss this matter with them?” The landscaper replied, “I have been trying to buy that property form him for 10 years! He better not be trying to sell it without at least talking to me first!” He agreed to contact the owner and have him call me.
Feeling that I had made some progress, I called Tayler Tibbitts at Fidelity National Title to ask him if there was anything that this owner might be able to do to protect himself if this does turn out to be a scam. Tayler had some great insights about documents or notices that an owner can record against their property to cloud title enough that it would require the title company to contact them prior to closing on a sale. I asked if it would be okay for me to have the owner call Tayler and he said, “of course!”.
A couple of hours later, I received a call from the real owner of the property and once I explained what was going on, he was shocked! He could not believe that someone was trying to sell a property that he owned without his knowledge. Because I wanted to make sure this scam didn’t happen to him, I told him what Tayler said and gave him Tayler’s contact info. The real owner was extremely grateful that I had taken the time to track him down and potentially saved him from having his property stolen. He and I chatted for quite a while about this property, some others that he owns, and just the market in general. It was a great connection and I think someday, something may still come from this referral.
For me, the best thing I got out of it was some education, a reminder to always trust your instincts, and to remember that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is—no matter how bad you wish it was true.
For those of you who still have questions about how this scam works or what the Title Pirates were trying to achieve here are the basics:
-they look for bare ground with no mortgage or debt against it
-they pretend to be the owner and list the property for sale
-they find a cash buyer (fewer eyes on the deal and less likelihood of a mortgage company, appraiser, or someone else noticing that they are not the real owner)
-they take it all the way to closing
-they demand to use their OWN mobile notary to sign the docs which they forge
-they have the proceeds from the sale wired to an account somewhere where it can’t be pulled back
-the buyer’s money is lost, the real owner potentially has to go through years of litigation to prove they didn’t actually sell the property to the buyer, and many lives are turned upside down.
I hope this brings the scam to light in a way that might save some heartache, wasted time, wasted money, and will keep you from being victimized in the future.
Here are a couple of articles that explain the scam in depth.
If you would like to learn more about commercial real estate, or talk with me about your property value, please don't hesitate to reach out! I can be reached at (208) 344-6275 or GDavisCRE@gmail.com.
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