Two days after New York police arrested a city councilman protesting the planned eviction one of his constituents alleging “deed theft,” New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani created an office in city government to combat the form of fraud where property ownership is illegally transferred without consent.
Deed theft often involves forgery, such as when a scammer fakes a homeowner’s signature and then files a fake deed with the county clerk. It can also happen if a homeowner unknowingly signs the deed over to a scammer. The practice often targets elderly home owners or homes where the owner has died and the family did not transfer the title.
