Ask Me Help Desk - Fraudulent Deed Filing

My grandmother put the names of her children on the deed to her home. The house had no mortgage. :) After she died, we found that she owed back taxes. None of the children except for my Mom was willing to pay or even help pay it. :( In order to pay it she told them that they would have to sign the house over to her. My uncle who is an attorney drew up the papers and everyone signed it. Trusting my uncle, she didn't really pay attention to everything she signed neither did she get copies ( I know bad move). The house didn't have a mortgage previously but after everything was signed over to my mom and dad they did a refinance or mortgaged the home to do repairs. 5 years later, my mom is refinancing for a lower rate and finds out that my aunt filed a deed putting all of their names back on it. Because of this she was not able to refinance. Somehow my uncle had got my mom to sign back the house the same day that all of the siblings signed the house over to her. Armed with this he must have given the paper to my aunt who went and filed it at the registry of deeds on June 5th 2007. The motive for this act of craziness was because my mother asked my aunt and her husband to move out of the house. Is there a way for my mom and dad to fight this?

Your parents may have a claim against your aunt and uncle. They need to speak to an attorney as soon as possible. They may also have an ethics claim against your uncle.

Are you talking about the fraud where you mom lied that she had to have it in her name to pay all the back taxes,

Or the fraud where the uncle got it all back into the other brothers and sisters names??

Since unless your mom paid her brothers and sisters for the property, this was the orgainal fraud, and the home is suppose to be in everyone's names.

That's one heck of an assumption you made, Fr_Chuck. Why do you assume that the mom lied about putting the deed in her name in order for her to pay the taxes? Payment of taxes is more than sufficient consideration for a transfer of property. It's possible that she decided that paying the taxes was her price for the transfer of all of the property and that the other parties agreed.

The uncle most definitely committed fraud if he had the mom sign a deed transferring her interest without her knowledge. But the mom committing fraud is a pretty far stretch.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck

Are you talking about the fraud where you mom lied that she had to have it in her name to pay all the back taxes,

Or the fraud where the uncle got it all back into the other brothers and sisters names ???

Since unless your mom paid her brothers and sisters for the property, this was the orgainal fraud, and the home is suppose to be in everyones names.

First of all, it wasn't fraud on my mother's part. It was either pay the taxes or there house would have been no house. Like I stated none of the other siblings wanted to pay it so if it were up to them the house would have be taken for non payment of taxes. My mom saw this lack of interest to help save the house so she proposed that they sign the house over to her. There is no fraud in that seeing how none of them were interested in paying off the taxes to keep it. How is that fraud? The fraud is that they had her sign two things one giving it to her and then another signing it back to them which was not filed until my mom asked her sister and husband to move out even offering to help them buy a home. My mother didn't have to pay them anything because she paid to keep the house from being taken away for non payment of taxes. She didn't say she had to have them sign the house over to her to pay the taxes, she asked if they would give the house to her since they were going to just let it be taken.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LisaB4657

That's one heck of an assumption you made, Fr_Chuck. Why do you assume that the mom lied about putting the deed in her name in order for her to pay the taxes? Payment of taxes is more than sufficient consideration for a transfer of property. It's possible that she decided that paying the taxes was her price for the transfer of all of the property and that the other parties agreed.

The uncle most definitely committed fraud if he had the mom sign a deed transferring her interest without her knowledge. But the mom committing fraud is a pretty far stretch.

Thank you Lisa. My mother did it to keep the house in the family. The house is 170 years old. It needed and still needs repairs thus the refinance

Thanks for your answer. It means a lot.