South Florida: Maintaing our leadership role in new Real Estate Fraud schemes

[Wayne Brooks]

In another one of those "how could they possibly think they'll get way with this" frauds: One of our local rocket scientists set upon a scheme where he filed forged QCD's on vacant properties in foreclosure, then "sold" them all on a lease purchase with $15-$40k down payments. Robert A Tribble, Jr filed forged deeds on 35 homes. Many of the buyers spent up to $40k repairing the vacant trashed and vandalized homes. Tribble had to lnow at some point the bank, or their preservation co.s, or the real owners would show up, then the gig would be over. Obviously he used lease purchase methods because a regular "sale" with a deed transfer wouldn't have made it past any cursory title search review, as there were still active foreclosure cases on the properties. This isn't a commentary on lease purchase methods, even though a tenant buyer should do a title search, just evidence that we here in south Florida are striving to maintain our dominance in real estate fraud schemes, some innovative, and some not so much.