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How To Steal The Empire State Building
from the 90-minutes-and-a-fake-stamp dept
Consumerist points us to a story about how The Daily News newspaper in New York was able to quickly forge some documents and get the deed to the Empire State Building handed over, no questions asked. Apparently, there's really no verification process at all. As the paper points out, while most folks probably would notice this with the ESB, for plenty of other buildings it's an effective scam for someone who wants to take out a bogus mortgage (and then disappear). You would think, in this day and age, there would be a somewhat more involved process and checks before simply handing over the deeds on any building, let alone a landmark like the Empire State Building.
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Oh sure, checks could be made much easier and cheaper than this; but then how would the city justify it's enormous/bloated/inefficient budget?
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Um, not quite. A deed is evidence of ownership, but it is not indisputable evidence. Realistically, the true owner may have a bunch of extra hassles, but won't lose their property as a result of a fraudulent deed. It is possible that a someone who accepted the deed as security for a loan or someone who "purchased" the property from the fraudulent deed holder might get victimized, but it is unlikely in most cases.
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Deed/Title is nearly meaningless
I had exactly this situation happen. I had a Jeep in storage that I was restoring, someone got ahold of the title, then they stole a Jeep of the same year. Sold the stolen jeep with my title...
When I went to license my Jeep I was told I couldn't because I wasn't the owner. $700 in attorney fees, and a couple of police reports later I had my Jeep's title back in my hand and in my name. The owner of the stolen jeep was arrested and then released once he proved what happened, and eventually the conman (a car lot none the less) went to jail. I eventually even received my $700 in legal fees back as restitution.
No lender is going to lend money on a deed without doing a title search, and if your stupid enough to transfer the deed into your name before applying for a loan then you deserve the time in jail.
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Have American criminals taken up this idea yet?
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also used not to pay inheritance taxes
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