Fraudsters, swindlers, forgers exist everywhere, in every country. That is the nature of man. The nature of the world. In the real estate field the regulatory systems try to protect the buyer and create mechanisms that will provide more certainty and the ability to carry out real estate transactions with reduced risk, but it does not always work, or the forgery can be caught.
My client traveled with the broker who showed him the apartment, and decided to buy it. In a phone call from Israel with the broker, while they were in the apartment, I asked him to send the local office the required documents so that we could carry out a due diligence check (DD), as is customary.
The broker began to argue and explain that the documents would be passed to the notary and that there is no point in the client paying us for the check.
A red light went on for me.
I explained to him that this is a long-standing client of the office, that he need not worry about his pocket, and that this is our way of working. I also made clear to him that the signing would take place at the notary we usually work with.
He tried to object.
I made clear to the client that I hoped he did not intend to act against my recommendation, and the call ended.
“Forgery in real estate is a serious phenomenon that can cause significant economic damage to buyers. It is important to be alert and to take appropriate precautions to avoid becoming victims of forgery”.
A week passed and the apartment documents had not reached the local office. The client began calling the broker, who put him off with various strange excuses. After more than two and a half weeks the documents finally arrived.
Two days later the local partner calls and tells me that something about the documents doesn't add up for him. He went to the notary we work with and he too feels uncomfortable with the documents. They ask for a few more days to deepen the examination. And the phone call with their unequivocal conclusion was not long in coming - the title deed is forged.
It turns out that the forgery of the title deed was highly successful. Someone not well versed and familiar would not have been able to notice the forgery. The forger(s) forgot a small, significant detail concerning the street name and the apartment's details in the past (in the country where we operate, when the street name or the block and parcel details are changed it is customary to also record the old details on the back of the title deed).
“Technology enables forgers to create forged real estate documents that look very real. It is important to use experienced professionals to check the documents before carrying out a real estate transaction”.
Do you tend to work by intuition, or do you form a working method that combines intuition with the experience of professionals in the field in order to protect yourselves in a deal? We firmly believe in a combination, learning and listening alongside professional checking and cross-referencing of data. And you?
Stories are based on real situations, with identifying details changed. Not legal advice.
Translated from the Hebrew original. עברית