Indiana County warns residents of fraudulent property sales by out-of-state scammers

Leaders in Indiana County are warning about fraudulent property sales by out-of-state scammers.

In the summer of 2025, the Indiana County Recorder of Deeds Office became aware of a scheme where alleged out-of-state owners of vacant rural properties around the county were trying to sell those properties.

The only problem was that the people who said they owned the property didn't. They were posing as owners, or family members of owners, forging information and documents, all to sell land that was not theirs and make off with hundreds of thousands of dollars from each sale.

Maria Jack, Indiana County's recorder of deeds, says since officials caught that first fraudulent sale last year, they have flagged at least 10 more attempted sales, which would have added up to millions of dollars in property theft.

"It's really bad," Jack said. "When I took over from the previous recorder, she was here for 34 years, and I said to her, 'I can't believe what I walked into, because it just gets worse in every instance, and we have to constantly be on the lookout.'"

Jack says the Pennsylvania State Police are currently investigating these illegal sales. And she says that while her office is rigorously checking every document that comes in, local attorneys and realtors are becoming aware of these out-of-state criminals.

Folks like Tom Moreau, who is a local manager of two Berkshire Hathaway offices, just this week had to call Jack's office and flag a potential sale.

"They evidently have a fraudulent notary in their pocket, because all the paper is coming up notarized," Moreau said. "I couldn't match up the parcel numbers with the information the guy was giving us, and then it turned out to not be valid. Pretty scary considering, once that money hits the wire, it's gone."

Now, if you have a rural vacant property and are worried about falling victim to one of these scams, the best thing to do is to contact your county's Recorder of Deeds Office and ask it to set up an alert for your parcel of land.