[imagesource:finelifegroup]

A North Carolina dentist recently learned that the 770-square-metre home he has been living in for years is no longer in his name.

Dr Craig Adams claims that a woman he has never met before filed legal documents claiming ownership of his $4 million home (close to R69 million) and managed to obtain the deed to his property.

Flummoxed, the dentist reports how the house showed up in the name of this total stranger who allegedly filed “a false warranty claim deed against the house and basically tried to steal it.”

The unaware man only learned that he apparently didn’t own his property anymore after a neighbour called to ask him if he had sold it and informed him that a woman named Dawn Mangum had asked for the gate access codes. Shockingly, Dawn was able to present what appeared to be a legal deed in her name even though Adams was none the wiser.

Image: WRAL News

To really drive this legal nightmare home, the deed, to Adams’ surprise, had indeed been legally obtained from the Register of Deeds and could not be revoked.

“They say there’s absolutely nothing they can do to reverse this. Once it’s filed their only solution is that I have to go hire a private attorney, and the first quote I got was about $8,000 (about R138,517) to file a civil suit against this woman,” he was quoted as saying.

Adams reportedly believes that Mangum’s plan was to simply squat inside the residence and use the title deed to delay the eviction process. However, the woman told ABC 7 Chicago that she only filed paperwork for the deed because she thought it had been abandoned and the law states that one can claim foreclosed properties.

She insists that she wants to return the ownership to Adams, but the law doesn’t allow it. The Register said they can’t remove a document once it has been recorded.

What truly frustrates the rightful owner is the sheer negligence displayed by the local Register of Deeds, who failed to perform even the most basic checks before granting a deed for a $4 million property to a total stranger. He believes his ordeal serves as a stark warning to all citizens of North Carolina, reminding them that anyone can stroll downtown and file a false claim on someone else’s property.

“There was no inquiry about who owns the property. If there had been just this one simple check, my name would have popped up,” Adams said. “There is no accountability measures … none.”

However, the North Carolina Register of Deeds has distanced itself from the situation, asserting that state law does not require its staff to verify the legal validity of a deed upon registration or the authority of its creator. While they do have the power to refuse to record a document if fraud is suspected, it seems there was no such suspicion in this instance.

For the final twist, Wake County Sheriff’s Department detained Dawn Mangum after she was charged with knowingly filing a fraudulent deed against Adams’ $4 million property.

What a nightmare.

[source:iol]