A Mississippi homeowner is living a nightmare after falling victim to a scam that caused her to be kicked out of her home and labeled a squatter.
Marcia Naylor of Olive Branch trusted a local company, introduced to her by a family member, to borrow against her home to assist with her finances after she found herself struggling after her husband passed away.
“He (said he) would borrow money against my house to give me wiggle room,” Naylor said. “I didn’t sign anything. He asked me to share a copy of the deed of trust to my home.”
Shortly after, Naylor was added to a list of victims who signed over their deeds for quick cash from the property’s value. The scammers then file a “quitclaim deed,” leaving it up to a judge to remove her from her home, stating she was squatting. “He upholds that document and tells me I have to be out of my home and that I’ve been squatting in my home for I don’t know how long,” the grandmother of two said.
Now, she has a $19,000 debt and rents an apartment with her grandkids.
In a statement, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) defined quitclaim deeds as “an easy way to legally transfer homeownership to someone else.”
However, they mentioned that “scammers are using them to steal property from the rightful owner.”
The organization highlighted how homeowners are targeted and how to avoid the situation. A scammer will contact homeowners by offering to modify their mortgage and lower payments, but legal documents must be signed first. BBB warns that those signed documents may be paperwork that transfers the title of your home over to the scammer.
Quitclaim deed scams are quietly making rounds across
the country. In Dayton, Ohio, a judge ruled that a woman’s property was stolen from her through a similar scam; however, according to the Dayton Daily News, she won’t be getting the property back as the people who purchased it are also victims of the alleged fraudsters,Another woman still has her home listed under the names of people to whom she claims she never sold it, although a judge ruled to invalidate the quitclaim deed. Since 2023, the Montgomery County Recorder’s office has received 91 complaints regarding questionable deeds.
According to the BBB, the best way to avoid the situation is to check your property records, keep an eye on your credit, and never transfer ownership of your property to any mortgage assistance company. Cases such as these are rarely prosecuted criminally due to the length of time that passes before the alleged fraud is found. In the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office, fewer than 10 cases are being investigated.