Troy Hall of Gilbert, Arizona, was puzzled when he received a text July 17 from a friend who is a real estate agent in Durango.
“Hey Troy, just got a referral that you are wanting to sell your County Road 240 parcel adjacent to your home. Is that accurate?” it read.
It was not accurate – Hall had not listed the 35-acre property. He thought the inquiry was odd.
Then he received another text about it. And then another.
Mike Davis, a real estate agent with Sotheby’s, had already walked the property when he texted Hall. Davis had been in email communication with Hall about the sale – or so he thought. Some grammatical mistakes made Davis suspicious, so he found Hall’s cellphone number on other records and sent a text.
It turned out Davis had been emailing someone pretending to be Hall, trying to sell Hall’s property and pocket the profit without Hall ever knowing.
“He had lots of information about me,” Hall said. “He knew where I lived in Arizona and what I paid for it (the parcel), when I bought it and that I wanted to sell it.”
The impostor said they were willing to enter into a sale contract for $799,000, likely far less than the riverfront property is worth.
Hall contacted the title company and asked if it would be possible to somehow prevent a sale of his property or note that it was not for sale, but the company said it was not possible. So Hall contacted the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office, which is now investigating the matter.
If caught, the person could face felony charges of identity theft, computer crime, criminal impersonation, forgery or fraud, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office said.
The type of fraud involved in real estate title theft can be difficult to prevent, as Hall discovered. If forged documents, such as property deeds and identification, appear legitimate, record-keepers have no basis for rejecting them.
“I have to accept anything for recording that meets recording requirements, which means the fee and that there’s room for me to put a recording label on it,” La Plata County Clerk and Recorder Tiffany Lee said. “I have more liability of not recording something than recording it.”
Once those documents head to the Assessor’s Office for title transfer, staff members check to ensure they are properly notarized. But if the identity thief has successfully assumed the real owner’s identity and had the documents notarized, they would be unlikely to raise any red flags.
“I started figuring out how easy this process really is to scam somebody,” Hall said.
Lee said that in 27 years, this is only the second time someone has attempted to steal a title in her jurisdiction. A similar attempt went even further in Bayfield, when a property owner went to sell their property only to learn that technically, they no longer owned it. The title company was able to correct the deed upon discovery, Lee said.
Hall came up with a creative solution to protect himself and his property.
The fraudsters are looking for unoccupied properties that are fully paid off and have no liens against them, which makes the sale process far simpler. So Hall decided to take out a lien against his own properties.
“That actually isn’t a bad idea at all,” Lee said. “It would probably prevent that (fraud), but that’s a lot for people to go through.”
Lee and the Sheriff’s Office recommends another prevention tool as well – idocmarket.com. The subscription service filters through recorded documents indexed by the county and can flag any names the user enters. It will send property owners an alert when anything is filed with their name, informing them of potential fraud.
Hall is grateful for the community in the area, which essentially did the same thing and took note when something did not seem right.
“Even me not being from there, it is a small enough community that people know each other and look out for each other and are still making a big deal about it,” he said. “Kudos to all those people.”
rschafir@durangoherald.com
