Scheme gives distressed properties to squatters
Law enforcement investigators in San Diego and Riverside counties have uncovered a brazen real estate scheme in which individuals are claiming ownership of distressed homes by filing official-looking grant deeds with county recorder offices.
The perpetrators then move people into the vacant homes, in some cases, by hiring a locksmith to change the locks. In one instance, a woman who tried to move into her newly purchased home of more than $800,000 in Chula Vista found a bogus grant deed taped to the window and squatters wrecking the inside.
“I was in tears,” said Christina Suggett, 37, an insurance company executive.
Suggett finally was able to reclaim her house with the help of the bank that had foreclosed on the previous owner.