Pittsburgh real estate agent says she's uncovered dozens of cases of deed fraud
Imagine finding out the home you own is no longer yours, even though you weren't behind on your mortgage or selling it. According to a Pittsburgh realtor, that's the reality for dozens of homes in Allegheny County.
Real estate agent Kelsey Green says she's found 35 cases of deed fraud, mostly in the city of Pittsburgh, with the majority in the South Side neighborhood.
She said she started looking into it when a property owner called her office to refinance, only to learn they no longer owned the property. County records showed they signed over the deed to someone else. The problem is, they didn't.
"We were really shocked to just keep uncovering more and more and see the scale that this person was able to get away with," Green said.
Green's office started seeing dozens of properties turned over to different LLCs. She has reason to believe they were all done by the same guy. They handed over their findings to the Allegheny County District Attorney's Office.
"The deeds were all identical with identical handwriting across all of them. The whole process was exactly the same," Green said.
At this point, since the man is not facing any charges, KDKA-TV is not naming him. We did reach out to a number associated with him and it no longer worked.
The reason someone would steal deeds is so they can either refinance or sell the homes and then take the money and run.She said many of the homes were not currently lived in. Potential safeguards include title coverage or insurance policies.
"Unfortunately, a lot of that wasn't available because a lot of these places have been owned for a long time. They're paid off. They're, a lot of the times, elderly people," Green said.
The process to get these deeds back in the right hands is not quick or easy. It involves getting court orders. Right now, these properties are not being resold or mortgaged.
"So, the next thing would have to be a new recorded document putting it back into the proper owner's name, which is not as simple as we would like it would be," Green said.
The district attorney's office confirms the matter has reached their office, but it cannot comment at this time.
