ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – St. Johns County officials are warning the public about “real estate ransom” which consists of unethical local investors or even more organized crime groups holding the title of a home captive until the owner pays a huge fee.
The warning comes after a 76-year-old woman said she is being victimized in a similar scheme.
Micheline Boutin said she thought she had a buyer to purchase her four-bedroom, two-bath home in St. Augustine, signing what’s called an assigned contract with an investment company for a purchase price of $350,000.
“She said, I’ll send you a contract, so the next day she sent somebody to come and take a look at the property, quickly. Take a couple of pictures,” Boutin said.
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Boutin said the investment company assigned the sale of her home to three different buyers, who either cited a lack of funds at closing or simply didn’t qualify. After the final closing failed, Boutin said she received an alert from St. Johns County’s Clerk Fraud Alert program, that there had been activity on the title of her home.
“They recorded a memorandum of purchase on my title, and sent me an email, saying they clouded my title, and now you can’t see until you pay us,” Boutin said.
Boutin said the investment company is now demanding $20,000 to release the title back to her possession.
St. Johns County Clerks of Court Brandon Patty said various kinds of property deed schemes to make money are prevalent in North Florida.
“They’re using all sorts of forms of medium, whether it’s on Facebook marketplace, like Ms. Boutin here in St. Johns County, or a variety of other mediums as well, they look for opportunities to exploit the law,” Patty said. “And one area that we as clerks are focused on is that candidly, we’re ministerial in our role, if a document is legally sufficient to be recorded, we have to accept it. And so that puts us in a position of where it’s very difficult to help protect residents against these types of crimes.”
Patty said St. Johns County’s Property Fraud Alert program will notify home and landowners immediately as soon as there’s been a legal recording with the Clerk of Court on their property. He said sometimes the fraud is being committed by unethical local investors or more organized crime groups overseas.
“These are just transnational criminal networks that are targeting our residents. And they’re very smart, and they’re very good at what they do. And which means that we have to strengthen our defenses and help spread the word as much as possible,” Patty said.
Boutin told News4JAX she still doesn’t have a clean title to her property, and she’s pursuing legal action against the investors she went into business with to release her title. She is currently renting her home because she cannot sell it until the lien is lifted.
Click here to subscribe to the St. Johns County Property Fraud Alert program.