NBC6 Investigates a scheme targeting vacant lots across South Florida. Tony Pipitone reports.
Jeff Torrey has been sitting on a 7,500-square-foot vacant lot in Pompano Beach for 13 years, waiting to sell it as part of his retirement plans.
But this month, those plans were nearly upended.
He started getting calls about his listing that lot for sale for $160,000.
The problem: he never listed it.
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A realtor told NBC6 he was contacted by a man posing as Torrey, replete with a copy of a fake driver’s license and an email address that included Torrey’s name – so he listed it on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS).
After being contacted about the listing, “That's when I said, what? So, I went home, I looked it up on Zillow and I put my address in Google, and there's my lot for sale with every real estate company in the world,” Torrey recalled. “I had nothing to do with it.”
An impostor had begun a plot to scam him out of the lot, and, had he succeeded, “I think I would have had to spend a lot of money with lawyers to reverse it," Torrey said.
Investigations
NBC 6 Investigates gets results
“We hear it all the time,” said Broward Property Appraiser Marty Kiar. “You know, vacant lots are targeted constantly by criminals.”
Walls in one of his staff’s Fort Lauderdale offices are lined with a rogue’s gallery of property-title thieves.
Pointing at them, he said, “You know, unfortunately, South Florida is the title fraud capital of the world.”
And lots like Torrey’s are easy pickings.
“Unfortunately, vacant lots are properties that are really targeted by criminals. And the reason they target them is because people don't live there,” Kiar said.
To catch them quickly, he’s created Owner Alert, https://web.bcpa.net/owneralert, a free service that sends property owners emails and texts once Kiar’s office is informed by the county clerk that a property has changed hands.
But, by then, a fraudulent deed transfer has already taken place.
Still, it allows a victim to quickly take the necessary steps to protect their property before the title is clouded further.
“I wish there was a way to stop it beforehand,” Kiar said, “but there really isn't. But that's why people should just be very, very vigilant.”
Or in Torrey’s case, very lucky.
Not so lucky, those caught advertising property that's not theirs. A law just passed unanimously in Tallahassee makes that a felony.
“It's a great law, and I cannot wait for it to be utilized,” Kiar said, “because the people that do this need to be held accountable.”
And Kiar will be glad to find more wall space for the mug shots yet to come.
After Torrey said he was passed along by the Broward Sheriff’s Office, State Attorney, Clerk of Court, Florida Attorney General, and FBI , NBC6 On Your Side put him in touch with Kiar’s investigators, who he said are looking into the case.
