Apartments and houses are always the object of attention of dishonest people - real estate scammers: after all, property can first be fraudulently appropriated and then sold at a profit.
It's no surprise that real estate scams are constantly improving. New schemes are emerging, which are sometimes extremely difficult for law enforcement to combat.
Therefore, in this article we will talk about fraud and types of fraudulent actions when selling and buying real estate. You will learn how to protect yourself when making transactions, and if you fall into the clutches of scammers, we will give advice on where to go and how to write a statement.
Real estate scams and their exposure
Practice shows that housing scams often occur in cases where apartment owners are elderly people or people with chronic alcoholism or drug addiction.
After all, they are easy to mislead and persuade to sign the papers required by scammers. As a result, a person, as they say, is simply thrown out onto the street.
However, frauds are also committed against quite sensible citizens who do not immediately notice the catch. Moreover, this applies not only to the purchase or sale of housing, but also to its rental.
Nowadays you can find descriptions of various techniques used by cybercriminals online. Some of them amaze the imagination with their sophistication and simplicity at the same time.
Fraud in the sale of real estate often occurs when the seller or buyer turns to realtors for assistance.
It would seem that the participation of a specialist should guarantee the legal purity of the transaction. At the same time, in practice this is far from the case.
Therefore, when choosing a real estate agency or private broker, it is worth asking about their reputation in advance.
A famous artist's mansion in the center of Moscow was stolen
A scandal is breaking out in the capital over the sale of premises that the Moscow authorities allowed the famous artist Marlen Chtchyan to buy back in the 1990s. Today the minimum market value of a mansion in the center of Moscow is 80 million rubles. But the 84-year-old master received only 6 thousand rubles for it.
In Soviet times, Marlen Grigorievich was the main designer of the capital's registry offices - many of them still have Chtchyan's . The premises around which the dispute arose is the outbuilding of the estate of the merchant August Roerich in Maly Kharitonyevsky Lane on Chistye Prudy. This is part of an architectural complex, the main building of which is occupied by the Griboedovsky registry office.
Marlen Grigorievich suffered because of his gullibility. Photo by Anastasia Vardanyan/Komsomolskaya Pravda
Having received ownership of the premises, the artist rented it out for 25 years. However, tenants were often late in paying. As a result, a considerable debt accumulated - about 1.5 million rubles. Karapet Martirosyan , took on the task of dealing with the problems . He offered to sign a document supposedly for the provision of legal services, but in reality he gave the half-blind artist a general power of attorney in his name and an agreement for the sale of shares in Svadebnoye CJSC, owned by Chtchyan - he was the only shareholder. As a result, the assets, including the mansion, were sold for 6 thousand. And you can’t formally dig into it: the artist signed it with his own hand.
The building is located in a “golden” location. Photo by Mikhail Frolov/Komsomolskaya Pravda
To top off Chtchyan’s misfortunes, all the decorations disappeared from the wedding salon he owned. The door to the room was not broken into - someone opened it with their own key.
I called Karapet Martirosyan. The man spent an hour convincing me that in this story he was the injured party, because he wanted to help the old man, hoping in return to receive the premises occupied by that same wedding salon. But the city seized it from the artist for debts. And Karapet was very angry with his grandfather. He decided it was easier to get rid of the asset than to bother with paying off debts and repairs - Marlen Grigorievich allegedly asked him about this.
The “Armenia” pavilion at VDNKh also has paintings by Chtchyan. Photo: Depositphotos.com
Martirosyan assures: the premises are 82 percent destroyed - with a thin roof, fungus on the walls, eternal puddles on the floor. A complete burden, not capital - the artist should be grateful to him for saving him from a unfortunate asset. But a buyer was found - despite Chtchyan’s appeal to the police, no arrest was imposed on the sale of real estate. And the new owner has already put the mansion up for sale. On the website of one of the agencies it is offered for 160.640 million. Here you have a wreck, for which the artist was “gifted” only 6 thousand rubles. You need to know how.
Nadezhda Panteleeva
#3/2021 fraud real estate black realtors experts
We sell and buy
Fraud during the sale and purchase of an apartment can be committed by all participants in the transaction. Here are just the basic techniques of attackers
Salesman
He can sell the apartment using forged documents, or without the appropriate authority.
The attacker may intentionally fail to notify the buyer about the presence of a lien, lien, or other encumbrances on the apartment. And also the swindler may not mention the state of his legal capacity.
Buyer
He can also provide fictitious information about himself to complete a transaction.
In addition, many scammers in the real estate market are fluent in the gift of persuasion.
As a result, the owner sells the apartment at a price significantly lower than its real value.
Realtor
Real estate agency fraud has several manifestations.
So the buyer is provided with non-existent apartment options for money (this is popularly called information services).
Realtors can force the seller to sign an agreement, according to which, if the apartment is registered without the participation of an agency, the owner will have to pay a substantial penalty.
Real Estate Mortgage Fraud
People can borrow money not only from banks, pawnshops, and microfinance organizations. If you take out a private loan secured by real estate, fraud also occurs.
In this case, the scheme is that the loan agreement is actually written out in such a way that it represents a transaction for the purchase and sale of an apartment. Thus, the housing is transferred to scammers for a fairly symbolic amount.
Further, apartment mortgage fraud involves resale and eviction of the real owner. At the same time, it is quite difficult to prove the fact of illegal actions, because the person signed all the documents with his own hand.
If you decide to take out a loan secured by real estate, then carefully read everything that you are asked to sign.
Double sales
Today, all transactions under the shared construction system must be carried out through a special bank account. The shareholders' money becomes available to the developer only after the house is put into operation. However, in practice, many construction companies have not yet switched to this scheme. This is especially true for small companies that have problems with sources of financing.
If you decide to invest in a property at the construction stage, study the catalog of new buildings on the website of the Fund for the Protection of the Rights of Shareholders and make sure that the commissioning of the house or apartment in which you expect to receive is guaranteed by the Fund for the Protection of the Rights of Citizens - Participants in Shared Construction.
Express Gazeta helped bring the swindler Anatoly Vasin to light. He had his eye on the apartment of Tamara Nosova (actress in “The Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors”). Photo: Still from the program “Let Them Talk”
Real estate scammers on Avito
In the Russian Federation, Avito is the largest portal through which citizens sell and buy various goods. Real estate fraud also occurs, but much less frequently. After all, a deal is usually checked before signing.
Therefore, scammers on Avito act in a specific way.
In particular, the ad is accompanied by a photograph of the object, which does not correspond to reality. As a result, the buyer is asked to pay a higher price.
As a rule, advertisements suggest making an advance payment, which is then, of course, cashed out.
Real estate fraud on Avito also affects the apartment rental market.
The basic scheme is that a potential employer is offered services for selecting suitable housing for a fee. However, most of the options provided have naturally lost their relevance.
If you get scammed
No one is safe from the actions of criminals. Therefore, the question arises, where to turn in case of real estate fraud?
Of course, you should resort to the help of law enforcement agencies. In addition, if fraud is proven, then in some cases it is necessary to file a lawsuit to declare one or more housing transactions invalid.
The injured party must contact the police immediately after becoming aware of the fraud. In his statement, the victim must describe all illegal actions related to real estate. If the identity of the attacker is known, then it is worth mentioning this.
Criminal prosecution depends on how complete the evidence base is. Therefore, documents, recordings of conversations with intruders, email correspondence, photographs, and so on should be attached to the police application.
To understand what a sample statement to the police about real estate fraud is, we offer to download its sample form on our website. Then you can adapt it to your own case.
The owner was killed a week before the deal
Realtor-detective Alina Stepanova not only deals with real estate transactions, but also exposes those who cheat in this area. It all started with an instructive story, which, alas, ended sadly.
— I was just starting to work as a realtor then. I remember how a young man came to the agency and turned out to be the owner’s double,” Alina said. — He sold an apartment on Znamenka for 45 million. He showed his passport, which, as it turned out later, was fake, and very convincingly explained why he did not have documents for real estate. Allegedly, he and his brothers divided the shares, and the papers remained with them. The deal was completed. The seller received the money and disappeared. But the apartment was taken away from the buyers by court and returned to the real owner. People were left homeless and without money. And the double is still wanted.
After that incident, I learned to unravel the plans of scammers. I filed a complaint with the police more than once, although I was not always met with understanding. And this is very annoying: it could have saved people from losing money. Here, for example, is such a story.
Alina Stepanova. Photo from personal archive
Our agent offered the client an apartment that matched his request. The previous seller was an 84-year-old grandmother, who, as it was later established, had already died by that time. We proved that the grandmother’s signature on the documents for the sale of housing is fake. But the police department in the Northern Tushino district accepted my application with great difficulty. It turned out that the current seller of the apartment was a certain citizen Tokmakov , who had just been released from a colony, where he was serving a sentence together with employees of that same police department for fraud with the apartments of deceased citizens. I served seven years and did exactly the same thing. I wrote a statement to the City Property Department. The grandmother had no heirs, and her apartment was literally taken away from under the noses of the capital’s authorities. The department filed a lawsuit - but not against Tokmakov, but against the people who managed to buy this apartment. What’s surprising: Sberbank was not at all embarrassed when it received the strange documents and accepted the apartment as collateral for the mortgage. Everything suited him! At the moment, the buyers' ownership rights have been terminated, but no one has released them from mortgage payments.
There was another incident. The daughter separated from her mother - they sold two rooms in a communal apartment in Moscow and bought two apartments in Balashikha. As soon as the girl and her boyfriend moved there, the district police officer came to them with the widow of the previous owner. It turned out that he was killed a week before the deal. It was carried out by a double - a 40-year-old man after six years of imprisonment; his photo was pasted into someone else’s passport. I noticed this because the real seller was 20 years old. But no one except me noticed this. As a result, the double was detained, but the deal was terminated, and the girl had to return the apartment.
Punishment and statute of limitations
To begin to restore your rights, you need to have an idea of how to prove real estate fraud. And here the police, first of all, need to present all the documents regarding the fraudulent transaction.
It is necessary to describe the identity of the scammer. It is quite possible that he is already involved in another case: after all, real estate scams are often carried out more than once.
You also need to understand that a criminal case for real estate fraud can be initiated within a certain time frame. For apartments and other housing, they are usually 10 years (Article 78 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
However, fraud also causes significant material damage to the victim. It can be recovered in court.
In this case, the statute of limitations for real estate fraud is 3 years, either from the moment the crime was committed or from the day the victim learned of his violated rights.
The article for real estate fraud (Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) also requires filing a civil claim at the stage of a criminal case. To do this, the victim must write a statement to the investigator recognizing him as a victim, a private prosecutor and a civil plaintiff. The claim itself will be an attachment to this petition.
A new apartment fraud scheme has been identified: hidden matrimonial property
“What was yours is now ours”
The Alibekov family found themselves in such an extremely unpleasant situation (all data has been changed). The head of the family is Edward Alibekov, a very complicated person, with a rich biography of a first-echelon Soviet official. He worked at the Ministry of Petroleum Industry, then went to manage a joint Soviet-Iraqi oil project in the Middle East. Upon his return, he began working in Viktor Chernomyrdin’s team.
The family did not live in poverty and was able to purchase a cooperative three-room apartment in a good building in the center of Moscow. The square meters were registered as the property of the husband.
Over time, the couple stopped living together, but retained the family property. The head of the family, son Murat Alibekov, his girlfriend and their young child were registered in the apartment. However, in 2018, the wife and son learned that they were no longer the masters of their home. Like in a nightmare - completely by accident.
“One day my mother called me from Baku. She has arthrosis of the fourth degree, so she constantly lives with her sister and practically does not walk. Mom said that she decided to divorce her father and divide the property through the court. She asked me to go to the MFC for a certificate from the house register. This document is needed for the court. I came to our MFC and there I learned from an employee that the owner of our family apartment had changed,” says Murat.
The man began to call his father, who lived separately, but he did not get in touch. I called my mother and told her the terrible news. The woman was shocked. This was the first time she had heard about the sale of the apartment. Then Murat went to the police. I wrote two statements at once - about searching for a parent as a missing person and initiating a criminal case due to apartment fraud. Alibekov had no doubt that their home had become the prey of apartment swindlers.
“The Family Code has a rule aimed at protecting the joint property of spouses in the event that the property is registered in the name of only one of them,” explains lawyer Oksana Filacheva. — In this case, transactions requiring a notarial form or state registration must be carried out only with the written consent of the second spouse. Moreover, this consent is certified by a notary in the presence of this spouse.
Law enforcement officers found Alibekov Sr. three weeks later in the hospital named after. Semashko in Lyublino. And a week earlier, they found the new owner of the elite square meters. He turned out to be a native of Belarus. The man assured that the deal was completely legal: he bought an apartment from the old man for 20 million rubles. Moreover, out of harm’s way, he even insured the deal against unforeseen incidents. The realtor acted as an intermediary in the purchase and sale. In his explanations to the police, he wrote the same thing as the home buyer: he selected an option that was suitable for the price and location, agreed with the owner, completed the transaction at the bank, and rented a safe deposit box for depositing money. By the way, the bank confirmed the fact of renting the cell.
“A wife is not a wall, you can move it”
At first, the Alibekovs’ son and mother thought that their father had decided to sell the family property behind their back. After all, in the Tagansky court the process of divorce and division of property - that same apartment - was in full swing. But the elderly man himself answered all his son’s questions about the sale of the apartment with complete bewilderment.
“I asked him: do you know that our apartment has been sold?” He answered: “How can this be? I do not know anything!" - Murat recalls.
Soon after this, the father of the family died of a broken heart. And then the new owners kicked my son out of the apartment.
— I left the house on Sunday to go to the store. In my pocket there are one and a half thousand rubles and a medical mask. Thank God, at least I took my passport with me. I bought bread and went to the pharmacy. I return home, get out of the elevator - there are 8-9 muscular people standing outside our apartment and the realtor who accompanied the transaction. They cut the lock and threw me out into the street. I called the police. The outfit has arrived, but what will they do? They told me: if you try to enter the apartment, it will be breaking into someone else's home. The law is on the side of the new owners,” complains Murat Alibekov.
Photo: Natalia Muschinkina
The family managed to find out under what scheme the apartment was sold behind the mother’s back. This scheme causes consternation even among experienced lawyers.
“The second spouse’s consent to the sale of jointly acquired property was forged,” says lawyer Oksana Filacheva. — The scammers certified a false consent from a notary on behalf of Liana Alibekova. It contains someone else’s passport details, someone else’s marriage certificate. There are errors in dates, in the series and number of the passport, even the year of marriage is indicated incorrectly. Here two questions arise: where was the notary looking and is he in trouble with apartment swindlers?
Experts explain: in legal usage there is even an informal concept - the regime of hidden marital property. This is when on paper there is only one owner of an apartment (or a dacha, or a car), but in fact there are two. The law treats such situations as in the proverb: husband and wife are one Satan. But in order to sell such jointly acquired property correctly, you need to observe a lot of nuances. Many of which can emerge much later and fray the nerves of either the spouse - not the owner - or the buyer. If the latter, of course, is an honest person and not a scoundrel.
Lawyers emphasize that the main document for the sale of matrimonial real estate, which is registered only in the name of the husband or wife, is the consent of the second spouse to the transaction. The correct consent must indicate the current passport details of the person giving such consent. In addition, the document must necessarily indicate the details of the marriage certificate. If there is an error in even one number or letter, this already gives reason to doubt the authenticity of the consent, even if it was certified by a notary.
At the same time, experts on real estate transactions complain that even an openly fake consent is not a hindrance to the transaction. Firstly, since 2019, Rosreestr has stopped checking the authenticity of such documents and even asking the seller and buyer of the apartment for their availability. The officials themselves emphasize that they do not check the purity of the transaction and do not even register it. The state only endorses the fact of transfer of ownership. Whether it happened legally or not is all up to the court to decide, citizens.
Liana Alibekova began a long and painful battle to have the apartment deal declared invalid. After all, even the buyer and his realtor are honest people and simply bought the apartment from her husband. But she did not give consent to her husband. This means that the deal, as lawyers emphasize, is contestable.
However, the courts stubbornly refused Alibekova. She lost both the first instance in the Tagansky Court and the Moscow City Court. The 2nd Cassation Court of General Jurisdiction also sided with the buyers. Although the widow of the real estate seller has, it would seem, concrete evidence in her hands: she simply was not in the country on the day when the Moscow notary certified consent to the transaction, and this is confirmed by documents from the Russian and Azerbaijani border services. The whole time someone was pulling off a clever scam with her apartment behind the elderly woman’s back, she was in Baku. This means that consent to sell is an outright fake.
A criminal case based on the Alibekovs’ application has not yet been initiated. Mother and son are trying to win their property with the help of civil lawsuits. So far - to no avail.
“So don’t let anyone get you!”
Lawyers do not deny: cases of selling an apartment fraudulently with forged marital consents are not uncommon. Most often, specialists are faced with two schemes. The first is outright fraud, when the spouse to whom the common property is registered falls into the clutches of apartment raiders. They spin the poor fellow into a deal, threaten or ingratiate himself. They forge consent to the transaction from the second spouse. The second scheme is that the owner-spouse himself gets rid of the family square meters behind his other half’s back. Most often, such situations happen either before a scandalous divorce, or to avoid claims from creditors. In general, don’t let anyone get your expensive apartment!
Lawyer Dmitry Ostrovsky advises that before purchasing real estate, be sure to check the consent of the second spouse.
“Even if the spouses are divorced, you need to obtain consent if the apartment was purchased during marriage and is not divided,” says Dmitry Ostrovsky. — If there is no consent of the spouse, I always warn my clients that there may be problems. Of course, I never directly accuse anyone. But I mean that there may be fraudulent actions on the part of the seller. Sometimes I say directly that I do not recommend buying such an apartment. It's Russian roulette for the buyer.
Experts also recommend checking the date of issue of marital consent. This document is issued indefinitely. Still, it’s better if the paper is fresh.
— If necessary, you can go to the notary who certified the consent. This is not a “don’t you trust me?” question. Yes, I don't trust it. And I have the right, tens of millions of rubles are at stake,” says the lawyer.
There is another way to run into an apartment with a “hidden” owner-spouse. The seller of such real estate “loses” his passport before the transaction. He receives a new document and does not specifically put a marriage stamp on it. And what - he has the right. With such a clean, zeroed biography, he sells an apartment. The buyer does not suspect that there is also a spouse in the transaction. After all, he doesn’t even appear in Rosreestr’s extracts. And after some time, the deceived wife (or husband) appears in hysterics on the threshold of an honestly purchased apartment and demands its return.
— It is impossible to check whether the seller is really single. A unified database of civil registry offices does not exist to this day. We must remember that according to the law, the passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation must be replaced at 20 and 45 years of age. If you suddenly see a new passport from a person of a different age, this is a serious reason to think - is it even worth making a deal with such a seller? Of course, a person may simply lose his passport or be robbed. But you will never check whether this is true or whether he is simply hiding his other half, who does not plan to sell their joint apartment, advises Ostrovsky.
There is also a very tough scenario. It is used by people whose spouses owe large sums of money. Well, or they themselves are mired in debt - the scheme does not change. In this case, selling the apartment quickly is the only chance to save the family budget from the bailiffs. This semi-criminal scheme works best if the debt collection court took place in another region.
— The scheme looks like this: the debtor specifically sells you an apartment, and then the creditor appears on your doorstep and declares that the property was sold in order to avoid liability. Initiates bankruptcy proceedings for the debtor. The sale and purchase transaction is disputed by the bankruptcy trustee. As a result, the buyer has neither an apartment nor money. The apartment is taken to pay off the seller’s debts, but you will never find him,” says the lawyer.
True, you can still protect yourself from such a terrible situation. The seller himself can be checked in court databases for open court cases. It won’t be difficult to check your debt history using the bailiffs’ database either. But it is almost impossible to find out whether the seller has a spouse who has accumulated debts during their marriage. So, despite the fact that two-thirds of any standard apartment purchase and sale agreement consists of a list of guarantees for both parties, selling and buying family real estate is still Russian roulette.
How to protect real estate from scammers: 7 useful tips
Below we will give recommendations on how to protect your property and not become a victim of intruders. Our advice will be equally useful to both the buyer and the seller.
Inspect the property before purchasing
Often, photographs in advertisements have little to do with reality. Therefore, it is useful for the buyer to visually get acquainted with the apartment for sale. You need to look at the general condition of the housing and its communications.
Get information about the apartment
The best way to do this is to order an extract from the Unified State Register. It will contain up-to-date information about the owners of the property and the encumbrances imposed on it.
Meet in person with the seller (buyer)
Even if the transaction is carried out by proxy, you should see the direct owner or buyer in person. It is also necessary to check his passport with the data of the title documents
Insist on obtaining consent from your spouse (when selling a shared apartment)
The paradox of the legislation is that when re-registering rights, consent is not part of the package of necessary documents. But then the second spouse will have every reason to challenge the deal.
Negotiate settlements after registration of rights
This way, the buyer will be able to protect himself financially in the event that it turns out that the apartment being sold was involved in fraudulent schemes.
Entrust the preparation of the contract to a lawyer
This will be an additional guarantee of the legality of the transaction.
Insist on notarization of the transaction
Let it cost more. However, drawing up an agreement with a notary will provide additional insurance against fraudsters. After all, the notary will check the identities of the parties, as well as documents for existing real estate.
We have given only 7 practical tips. We hope that following them will help protect yourself from the actions of residential intruders.
Fake passport
The purchase and sale agreement can now be concluded in simple written form. Now imagine the situation. A person comes to the MFC with a fake passport, which can be bought for three to four thousand rubles, and submits documents to an employee who has been tormented by visitors, who definitely will not bother checking the authenticity. You can bring with you a person who looks like the one shown in your passport photo, but no one will match you either.
By the way
- Sometimes criminals selling an apartment resort to completely deceitful methods. For example, they show an apartment in good repair at one address, but sell a destroyed one at another. In residential areas there are many houses of the same type, which differ, for example, in building number. When concluding a transaction, the real address is indicated, but the housing located there does not correspond to what was shown to the buyer.
How not to fall for the bait
- On the website of the Federal Bailiff Service, see if there are any legal proceedings for collection against the seller. But keep in mind: there you can track the processes that took place before the real estate sale transaction. If the creditor shows up after it has been completed, unfortunately, there is no insurance mechanism.
- Requesting an extract from Rosreestr for an apartment costs no more than 400 rubles. Only after this can you give an advance.
- Carefully read the contract you sign, especially what is written in small print.
- Enlist the help of a lawyer or realtor. And all transactions must be carried out with the participation of a notary, although now the law allows you to do without it. The notary checks whether the passport is valid, whether everything is clean with the property, whether there are any legal disputes surrounding the apartment, whether applicants for the property are hiding, and whether there are registered relatives in the apartment. It’s better to pay 20-50 thousand than to lose everything.
It is especially dangerous if:
- over the past year the apartment has been resold several times;
- housing was received by inheritance opened less than three years ago;
- there are illegal redevelopments;
- real estate is sold by proxy without the personal participation of the owner or at a price much lower than the market price.
Why caution is a good idea
Persons who commit crimes in the real estate market often have some legal training. In addition, scammers are united in groups that include unscrupulous representatives of government agencies. Their functions may include issuing false documents.
Statistics show that almost every month a new scam is invented. Therefore, when thinking about buying, selling an apartment, or renting it, study all the latest information on the Internet.
Well, before signing an agreement, it would be a good idea to consult with a real estate lawyer. He will tell you what details of the transaction to pay closer attention to.
Author: Oleg Vladimirovich Roslyakov, source.
