Deed Theft Is Spiking. Here's What Could Disappear From Your Closing If You're Not Watching.

The Day They Knocked on Nurul Islamnuru's Door

Nurul Islamnuru closed on a four-bedroom house in Queens on a Friday in July 2022. He had spent 18 years as a busser and server at California Pizza Kitchen, then worked in a souvenir shop at Times Square. The backyard had room for his three kids to play.

"I feel really proud," he told a reporter.

Less than a year later, a man named Mizanur Rahman, who had previously pleaded guilty to bank fraud and had been involved in earlier fraudulent transfers involving the same property, was able to fraudulently transfer the deed to a company called Merrick Capital, whose members remain unknown. Islamnuru still lives in the house he bought, but more than three years after closing, he does not have undisputed title to it. His wife cries sometimes. She asks, "What happened to us?"^[1]

Islamnuru's story is not rare. From 2019 through 2023, more than 58,000 victims nationwide reported $1.3 billion in losses relating to real estate fraud, according to an FBI report.^[1] In New York City alone, there were 517 deed theft complaints in 2025, more than three times as many as just two years earlier, according to the state attorney general's office.^[1][5] Complaints increased by 240 percent from 2023 to 2025, Attorney General Letitia James reported.^[5]

Deed theft is when someone steals the title to a home without the homeowner's knowledge or approval. The perpetrator files fraudulent paperwork with the county clerk, impersonates the owner, or tricks the owner into signing documents they do not understand. Once the deed is transferred, the thief can sell the property, take out loans against it, or evict the rightful owners.

"When you lose title to your property, you're not just losing the equity that you have invested, this is your life savings that has been stripped, but it's also your home," said Jacob Inwald, director of litigation-economic justice at Legal Services NYC, which represents fraud victims. "These are often seniors who have been in these properties for decades."^[1]

How the Scam Works: Three Patterns, One Target

The schemes share a common structure. Perpetrators go door-to-door, looking for homeowners who are in distress about their housing situation, Inwald said. They may be behind on mortgage payments, facing a lien, or dealing with a foreclosure threat.^[1]

"They will tell them, 'We're going to help you resolve your arrears in one way or another,' without necessarily giving them a lot of detail, but they will have them sign a series of papers, the end result of which is the owner, usually without even knowing that this is what they are doing, has transferred title to their property," Inwald said.^[1]

A second pattern involves forged signatures and fake notarizations. In Islamnuru's case, Rahman allegedly obtained fraudulent notarization of the property at a U.S. embassy in Bangladesh and used that to transfer ownership.^[1] Leslie Wybiral, an attorney with Queens Legal Services representing Islamnuru, described the structural problem this exploits: "New York's recording system requires documents that appear valid on their face to be accepted, which can be exploited by bad actors. Even where fraud is clear, there is no fast way to correct the record, forcing victims into years-long litigation just to restore ownership."^[1]

A third pattern uses legal structures to obscure the theft. Brooklyn attorney Sanford Solny told victims, primarily Black or Latino homeowners facing foreclosure, that he could negotiate a short sale and help them avoid losing their homes. Instead, he tricked them into signing over their deeds to corporations he controlled. Solny was convicted of 17 charges and sentenced to up to seven years in prison for stealing deeds to 11 properties.^[1][6]

Technology has made all three patterns harder to detect. "Technology has also lowered the barrier for criminals, who are using AI and digital tools to impersonate sellers, fake credentials, and make scams more sophisticated and harder to detect," said Chris Morton, CEO of the American Land Title Association, which represents the title insurance industry.^[1] In 2023, 28 percent of title-insurance companies experienced at least one seller-impersonation fraud attempt, the land title association reported.^[1]

Black Homeowners Bear the Brunt

Deed theft has landed hardest in Black neighborhoods, deepening racial wealth gaps that took generations to build. In Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Black homeownership has fallen from roughly 70 or 80 percent decades ago to around 50 percent today.^[6]

The pattern is rooted partly in what researchers call heirs' property, homes passed down informally through families without wills or probate. The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has identified this as leaving families highly susceptible to loss, because multiple co-owners hold unclear interests that can be exploited.^[6]

Carmella Charrington's family has lived in their brownstone at 212 Jefferson Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant for six decades. In 2024, the property was purchased by 227 Group LLC for $1.4 million, according to property records. Charrington says her father, who has Alzheimer's, did not authorize the sale and that her family was never properly notified.^[6] She spent six days in Rikers Island jail after a Civil Court judge held her in contempt for failing to produce her father in court.^[6] On April 22, city marshals and sheriff's deputies arrived at the brownstone to attempt an eviction.^[6]

Council Member Chi Ossé was arrested while defending Charrington outside her home. "Sometimes the perpetrators use illegal methods," Ossé said. "Sometimes their methods are technically legal. In all cases, the practice is cruel and wrong, and everything that is legal isn't right or just."^[5]

The City's New Office: What It Does and What It Cannot Do Yet

On April 24, 2026, Mayor Zohran Mamdani established New York City's first Mayor's Office of Deed Theft Prevention and appointed Peter White as its director. White, a supervising attorney for homeowner assistance at Access Justice Brooklyn, will lead a coordinated citywide strategy to prevent fraud, support impacted residents, and strengthen enforcement.^[2]

The office, established by Executive Order 16, will expand strategic enforcement against deed theft, flag suspicious property filings, coordinate with law enforcement, conduct public education and outreach, promote preventive safeguards, and improve data-sharing across agencies.^[2][3] It will be housed within the Department of Finance, working with the Sheriff's Office, the Commission on Human Rights, the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.^[2][3]

The office will have a budget of $500,000 in the current fiscal year and $1 million for the next, a fraction of the $10 million Mamdani originally promised during his mayoral campaign.^[5] Advocates say the office needs more than a director to be effective. Inwald of Legal Services NYC would like to see the city hire additional staff, not just the director.^[1]

In March, Mamdani also suspended the city's program that sold unpaid tax liens to investor-backed trusts, which then tried to collect unpaid bills with added fees. The city published a list of homes available in the lien sale, which Inwald said gave scammers "a road map to go out and literally knock on the doors of at-risk homeowners and tell them, 'We will solve all your problems.'"^[1] The pause is a positive development, Inwald said, but advocates believe the city should end tax lien sales altogether.^[1]

At the state level, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation in 2023 making it easier for the attorney general and local district attorneys to investigate and litigate deed theft. The law, co-authored by James and sponsored by State Senator Zellnor Myrie and Assembly Member Landon C. Dais, established deed theft as a crime.^[5] The statute went into effect in November 2024.^[6] James announced the first criminal cases under the new law in 2025, indicting two people accused of stealing the home of an 88-year-old widow receiving hospice care in Queens.^[6]

In 2024, New York passed a version of the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act that bars investors from initiating the partition process altogether, going further than 24 other states that adopted the act to give co-owners the right of first refusal before a forced sale.^[6]

What This Means for You

Deed theft is not a problem only for existing homeowners. It affects the entire real estate transaction chain. When a stolen property is sold to an innocent buyer, that buyer may find themselves caught in litigation over a title they thought they owned. Title insurance exists precisely for this reason, but 28 percent of title companies reported encountering seller-impersonation fraud attempts in 2023, a signal that the problem is outpacing the industry's defenses.^[1]

The structural vulnerability is this: Recording systems accept documents that appear valid on their face. Even when fraud is clear, correcting the record requires years of litigation. Every party in a closing transaction has a financial incentive to keep the deal moving, but no automatic system flags suspicious filings before the damage is done. The new NYC office is a step toward proactive monitoring, but it is staffed by one director and a $500,000 budget.^[5]

The racial targeting is not accidental. Predatory actors identify neighborhoods and demographics where homeowners are more likely to hold heirs' property, have language barriers, or face housing distress. This is not a technical gap; it is a pattern that exploits structural inequality in homeownership.

What You Can Do This Week

Check your deed at your county clerk's office. If you bought your home years ago and have never verified what is on file, request a copy of your recorded deed and compare it to what you remember signing. Errors can persist for years before you notice them.

Ask your title company: what is your verbal-confirmation protocol for wire transfers? Title companies increasingly use phone callbacks before wiring funds, but the standard varies. If your title company will not verify a transfer by phone with a known number before you send money, get a second quote. Title insurance premiums and practices vary across companies.^[1]

If you are behind on mortgage payments or facing a lien, do not sign anything a door-to-door "helper" puts in front of you. Inwald's description of how deed theft victims are approached should be a red flag: vague promises to fix your arrears, papers presented without clear explanation, pressure to sign quickly. No legitimate housing counselor needs you to sign over your deed.^[1]

If you are buying a home, ask your title company whether they run identity verification on the seller and whether they flagged any seller-impersonation risk on this property. In 2023, more than a quarter of title companies encountered such attempts. Ask what they found on this transaction specifically.^[1]

If you live in Brooklyn or Queens and believe your deed has been tampered with, contact the Mayor's Office of Deed Theft Prevention at 212-639-9675 or through NYC.gov. The office was created to help homeowners in exactly this situation. It is new and under-resourced, but it is the city agency specifically tasked with coordinating enforcement and connecting victims to legal help.^[2]

If you are a senior or care for one, contact Legal Services NYC at 917-661-4500 or Access Justice Brooklyn. These organizations have represented deed theft victims and understand the litigation process. Do not wait until after a deed is transferred to call.^[1]

Islamnuru is still in his house. His case is still in court. The title is still disputed. Three years after closing on what he thought was his family's future, he is still fighting to prove he owns what he paid for. The new office cannot undo what happened to him. But if more homeowners know what to watch for before a deed is stolen, fewer families will end up in his position.