Fraudulent vacant land listings on the rise, sellers predominately posing as foreign sellers or out of town owners. As an experienced real estate agent, it is common to deal with a prospective seller through email, especially if that seller claims to be on a completely different time zone and there is no need to personally meet at an unoccupied land parcel. It’s easy to research public tax records for death certificates or unpaid property taxes to uncover off guard property owners. A fraudulent actor contacts a licensed Realtor representing themselves as the rightful owner and conducts all business through electronic signatures under the owner of record name and communicating only through email/text. I have been involved with four fraudulent transactions this year on the buyer side, fortunately we uncovered suspicious activity on each one and were able to successfully backout of each transaction. However, many others are not so fortunate and may eventually have property title issues.
What Can You Do?
If you are in the market to purchase vacant land, look for these red flags by asking your real estate agent if anything out of the ordinary exist with the parcel, such as unpaid property taxes, lack of seller disclosures, time pressure to close on a “great deal.” If you think a deal is too good to be true, you’re probably right!
