Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

I had a similar case like this a couple of years ago, except the individual who stole the ID bought 5 houses in the name of my client. Did this person steal your ID, or did you think you were co-signing for him.

The answer to your question is, yes, you can sue this person, but does he have any money? You also need to report this to the lender as ID theft, and they will require that you provide them with specific information. You may also try to sue the notary who notarized documents.

You have a complicated set of legal issues here and navigating your way through them, to clear your name and possibly to recover damages, needs to be handled carefully. Having discovered the fraud in 2007 you are also running up on statute of limitations issues that could prevent your recovery. You need to get real legal counsel, not free advice, pronto.

These cases are not common, but they happen regularly. It seems some scams are just so tempting and easy to think up, that they are repeated time and again. When I was a vice-president and Northern California litigation counsel for Fidelity National Financial, I handled a number of these cases for our Fidelity National Title and Chicago Title subsidiaries. Both you and the bank have a number of people you can, and probably need to, sue to get this cleared up. If you would like a free initial consultation, we could go over the details of the situation and I would outline your options. Feel free to give me a call or send an email to arrange a meeting or telephone consultation (you don't specify where you are located). In any case, however, whether you contact me or another attorney, I can't recommend strongly enough that you not wait any longer to at least consult with an experienced real estate litigator.

There are laws regarding identity theft, and you can search them online, but the first step is to file a police report and to obtain a copy of the report.