CLEVELAND — Imagine waking up to learn your house isn't yours anymore.
It's a nightmare Ramon Gordon has been living for the past five years after he says he learned through an online search that three of his properties were sold without his knowledge.
Gordon said that in 2019 he learned someone had sold his rental properties without his knowledge to an LLC based out Miami. That's money he never saw from a seller he's never met.
"I woke up one morning and my houses was forged out of my name," he said. "It’s been hell."
Since then, Gordon has only been able to recover one of the three properties and has spent more than $30,000 trying to get them all back.
Let's talk about 'Quit Claim Deeds' and deed theft
Experts say it is a crime happening more often. Crooks forge documents and transfer property to someone else with the goal of quickly selling it and turning a profit.
"I don’t think anyone saw this coming," Cuyahoga County Director of Real Estate Services Brian O'Malley said.
"It’s just been slowly ticking up."
O'Malley said the crime started to appear after the 2008 financial subprime mortgage crisis as vacant homes were seized and sat empty for years, and it has gotten progressively worse.
"As a lot of those properties fell through the cracks of that whole crisis, I think criminals saw an opportunity," he said.
He said his office sees several cases of suspected deed theft each month now.
News 5 started reporting on fraudulent deeds four years ago.
RELATED: 3 men accused of forging documents to steal, sell houses in Cleveland, Garfield Heights
In Gordon's case, this landlord said he lost his properties as a result of quit claim deeds, a simple legal document often used to transfer property between family members or in a divorce.
Gordon showed News 5 copies of the fraudulent deeds, with signatures that do not match his personal signature.
Cleveland Police pursued criminal charges twice, but the charges were eventually dropped. Civil suits are ongoing.
At the Cuyahoga County Real Estate Services offices, O'Malley admitted even with new layers of security instituted as recently as last year, it can be hard to spot a fraudulent signature.
"The problem I have is my staff are not handwriting experts," he said. "It all comes down to a signature. They would have to compare signatures. We process 50,000 transfers a year, recording over 200,000 documents. There's no way they would even have the training or ability to [question a signature.] Nor would we have the legal authority to do anything about it."
O'Malley told News 5 they've added new layers of security in the past year, including no longer accepting handwritten deeds and asking for additional paperwork such as settlement statements.
"I use the analogy of the electric fence: Every time we perfect it, they find another weakness," O'Malley said. "I feel bad because I want to do more in our role as auditor and recorder. But at a certain point, it’s the legislature that has to step up."
How the crime has evolved (no, we're not going to tell you exactly how to do it yourself)
Right now, O'Malley said they’re running into issues where notary stamps are being easily forged, stolen or used without the notary's knowledge, a check and balance that's supposed to protect the integrity of an individual's signature.
O'Malley admitted that the crime is incredibly easy to commit.
"You used to have to find a notary to break the law and notarize the forgery," O'Malley explained. "Now, people are just going [online] and ordering stamps with other people’s information."
News 5 was told the steps a criminal would need to take to perform a notary forgery.
Without divulging the exact criminal playbook, News 5 can confirm this reporter was able to replicate the crime in four minutes. The simulated crime was done by easily locating a notary's information and buying a stamp with their information online, all done entirely without the notary’s knowledge.
RELATED: Here's how someone could easily steal your real estate property -- and what you can do to prevent it
"There should be some sort of [process] to confirm I am notarizing this document and confirm [that] I’m me," O'Malley added.
In the case of Ramon Gordon, those fraudulent deeds were notarized using a stamp that records show was invalid, having expired a year earlier.
"It’s too easy," Gordon said. "They stole three properties."
What you can *and should* do about it
Most counties in Ohio offer free property alerts, which notify property owners any time your personal or entity name is used in a real estate filing within the county.
"It's completely free and protects your property." O'Malley said. "Sometimes time is of the essence. It's better to deal with it right away."
O'Malley also quashed some concerns from homeowners about what kind of properties are often targeted.
"I’d say 90% of the victims are rentals or empty homes." O'Malley said. "If you're living in your house, they're not going to target you because you're going to know right now. There's gas bills, electric bills, there's so much going on. The houses they're looking for are empty or the owner died."
To learn about property alerts in Cuyahoga County, click here.
Clay LePard is a special projects reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow him on Twitter @ClayLePard or on Facebook Clay LePard News 5.
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