It was January 2022, when fewer properties were listed and market conditions tightened in the Greater Toronto Area — that’s when police say Toronto homeowners who were on an extended business trip discovered that their home was sold without their consent or knowledge.
Toronto police are now looking for two people they say impersonated the homeowners, hired a real estate agent and advertised the Etobicoke property for sale. The apartment has been sold to new owners who have taken possession. Investigators say the rightful homeowners didn’t find out their property had been sold until several months later.
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How could such a thing happen?
Ronald Alfonso, a real estate investor and president of the Mortgage Broker Store, says this phenomenon may be more common than one might think.
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“Somewhere along the way, someone with access to the land registry system, whether it’s a lawyer or someone else, transferred ownership from the current home owners to someone else, illegally,” Alfonso said.
0:24 Toronto homeowners find their property sold without their consent, police say
This land registry system, Alfonso says, is administered and owned by Teranet on behalf of the Ontario government. Real estate attorneys and others who are authorized to transfer titles and sell houses can access it through specific codes.
“If their key code is taken by someone else or copied by someone else or misappropriated in any way, that person can access the system and do whatever they want. They can transfer one house or a hundred houses,” Alfonso said.
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And it doesn’t take long, says Afonso.
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“The actual transaction is just a few keystrokes on a computer, so you can be removed from the title within minutes,” Alfonso said.
But when does the owner actually realize that his property has been fraudulently sold? Alfonso says it could be a month or even six months later.
“They’ll only know when they actually get a document that says they’re no longer the owner, like a property tax, that you no longer own the house,” Alfonso says.
And by then, he says, the fraudsters usually left the country almost without a trace.
Alfonso says that thanks to COVID precautions, this type of fraud is relatively easy to pull off. Prior to COVID, customers were required to go to a solicitor’s office when purchasing a home to sign documents, where they would answer questions and present an in-person ID.
“Now you can do what’s called docusign or e-sign online,” says Alfonso. This makes it difficult for the police to compare handwriting in the case of fraud. But what about photo ID requirements?
Police have released a photo of a man and woman wanted on fraud charges after they allegedly used fake identification to pose as the real homeowners. Toronto Police
“You can easily go into Photoshop, just copy a passport, change a photo here and there,” says Alfonso. “The lawyer is not going to go back and check all the information in that passport. You can do the same with a driver’s license. The lawyer will accept them at face value.
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In the Etobicoke case, police have not released the names of the accused, only two photos. Global News reached out for more information, but police remained tight-lipped, directing all inquiries back to their release.
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As for how homeowners and buyers can protect themselves against this type of scam, Alfonso strongly recommends purchasing title insurance.
“This protects the buyer against fraud, illegal transfer of title and a whole host of items,” says Alfonso. “Let’s say you bought the house 10 years ago. Title insurance is still valid. It still insures you against illegal transfer of your ownership. So this is for the existing home owner. The buyer (may also) get title insurance — it also protects them just in case the title has been illegally transferred.
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