Some Detroit renters are victimized by a persistent scam related to widespread home foreclosures, according to a local media outlet and national network.
A four-month investigation by NBC News and Outlier Media involving scores of property records and dozens of interviews with victims, lawyers, prosecutors, experts and government officials found that the "fake landlord" scam has menaced Detroiters for at least the past decade.
In some cases, people who have lost their house to foreclosure have kept collecting rent from tenants without letting on that they're no longer the landlord. In others, con artists have broken into vacant houses, changed the locks, listed them for sale or rent, then collected payments from victims.
Some fake sellers have even filed false deeds to make fake sales look legitimate, lawyers and experts say. But culprits rarely face consequences, the investigation found.
Vacant Detroit home in 2019. (Photos: NBC News screenshots)
The 3,600-word investigative report, posted Wednesday, is "so common in Detroit that real estate lawyers and housing advocates say it affects as many as 1 in 10 tenants facing eviction," write Erin Einhorn of NBC and Aaron Mondry of Outlier. They speak with eight victims.
"This happens all the time," attorney Donovan McCarty is quoted as saying. He works at the nonprofit Michigan Legal Services.
[Donovan] estimated he'd heard versions of this scam from 5 to 10 percent of the more than 200 Detroit tenants he’s represented this year.
The Detroit Land Bank Authority shares blame, according to the journalists.
The authority acknowledges that it isn't always able to make contact with people living in the estimated 2,400 occupied houses it owns, allowing scammers to break into the houses, then credibly pose as landlords.
"We are certainly limited by size, scope and budget," Alyssa Strickland, a spokeswoman, said, adding that the authority is "working diligently every day to connect with people living in Land Bank-owned houses."
The Land Bank created a one-person Real Property Integrity Unit early last year to investigate reported scams and has since referred 10 cases to police, Strickland said. ...
Alysse Miller, the Land Bank's program manager for occupied houses, estimates that one in five people who call about the authority's Buy Back program are residents who’d been paying the wrong person to buy or rent their home.
Another abandoned house in Detroit.
The city and state created the authority in 2010 to manage vacant properties and return them to productive use.
Deed fraud can be "very complex" to unravel because of fake names and IDs, a Detroit police Capt. Gerry Johnson Jr. is quoted as saying.
"We're doing everything we can to hold these individuals accountable." ...
It’s not clear how often [police] even hear about scams. Of the eight victims interviewed by NBC News and Outlier, only one contacted authorities. Others said they feared retaliation from their scammers.
Another risk is that victims get evicted as squatters.
