Some new homeowners in Montgomery County are discovering they’ve bought a dud.
“We think they’re primarily targeting the immigrant community,” Montgomery County Auditor Karl Keith said.
The scammer sells the unsuspecting person a home that has outstanding taxes owed, has a lien against it, or a municipality has listed it as a nuisance property to be demolished, according to Keith.
New immigrants can be particularly vulnerable to these scams because they might not be familiar with the complex local real estate process.
Keith says another problem is most of these sales are cash transactions.
“That way it doesn’t involve a bank or a mortgage company, because the mortgage company or bank would require those taxes be paid or at least disclose those things,” explains Keith.
Keith recommends hiring a title agent. That person will do a title search and identify delinquent taxes or legal claims against the property. He also encourages people to look at mcrealestate.org to find out if there are any problems surrounding the home for sale.
“They can look up the property on our website, they can see if there are any delinquent taxes or delinquent charges applied to that site. If there are delinquent taxes, they can contact the treasurer’s office and sign up for a payment plan,” Keith said. “Finally, they can contact the city, the municipality just to make sure the property is not on the nuisance list or demolition list.”
According to Keith, no one has been arrested for executing this scam.
