Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Florida

An erroneous/fraudulent Quit Claim deed was filed on my grandparents home in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Shortly after we received a notification from the clerk advising us of the same. Before we could respond we received a notification from a court employee stating that:

�There is a deed recorded in Record Book ___ Page(s) ____. See attached associated with the above referenced property, which appears to have a discrepancy in its legal description. At this point in time we are unable to process the deed. Please examine the attached deed and notify our department if the legal description is correct as intended�.

The error on the deed was the page in the legal description.

Several months later we come to find out that there is a fraudulent mortgage on the property. The mortgage was obtained by using the fraudulent deed indicated above.

My question is: Is the Deed mentioned above considered valid even after the Clerk sent us a letter stating it was not valid????

Thank you for your help, my, grandparents are elderly and have lived their entire life to pay off their home. The house is free and clear for several years and then this happens. You can imagine they are not taking the situation very well.


Asked on 1/20/10, 9:33 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Steven Meyer CPLS, P.A.

I'm sorry to hear about the situation.

The first thing to do is to report the mortgage fraud to the police. The FBI may also be interested in taking a report. There must be people involved in addition to the supposed new owner of the home, such as the mortgage broker and the people who handled the alleged closing. They may all have been involved in the scam.

I doubt that the bank holding the mortgage will voluntarily cancel the mortgage. Your grandparents probably will have to file a lawsuit to "quiet" the title to the property and to get the judge to invalidate the security interest that the bank holds in the property by virtue of its mortgage.

Your grandparents should also sue the person(s) who obtained the mortgage and tried to file the false deed.

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Answered on 1/25/10, 2:51 pm


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