St. Lucie County - Tuesday September 20, 2022: St. Lucie County Clerk Michelle Miller has established a property fraud alert to help protect County residents against an increasing number of property fraud cases.
Just a few months ago, says Miller, a Canadian developer who owned property in Port St. Lucie decided it was time to build, but to his surprise, St. Lucie County Clerk Michelle Miller says, he found out he no longer owned the land.
“They property that he wanted to develop, when they went to pull the permits for it they found out that the property was no longer in his name," said Miller. "We found out that the person who stole the property actually went through the title company with a false passport, this actually went through a legitimate title company.”
It wasn’t an isolated case says Miller, property fraud cases have been reported with increasing frequency throughout Florida, and here in St. Lucie County. “You have fraudsters out there who are impersonating you and they are taking the property and just doing it with a quit claim deed.," she said.
"As the clerk, I don’t have the authority to vet each one that comes in. Just last week we were notified from a title company to put a hold on a document and it was a fraudulent document that was trying to be recorded,” said Miller.
As a result, Miller has launched a free Property Fraud Alert service that automatically generates a notification sent to the legal property owner whenever a new document is filed on their land. “Anything that’s recorded in your name, you will have a notification within 24-hours that says, ‘Hello! Check this out!’. If it’s yours, give us a call.”
You can sign up for the Property Fraud Alert Service at stlucieclerk.com/fraudalert.