Deed theft complaints to New York’s Attorney General more than tripled

The New York Attorney General’s office received 149 deed theft complaints in 2023, 222 in 2024 and 517 in 2025, CBS New York reported in April 2026. That is more than three times as many in two years.

Two cases from the Attorney General show how deed theft and equity theft play out:

• Queens, August 2025. In the first indictments under the new law, a home was signed away while its owner was in hospice care, moved again to a company, and then used for a new mortgage of more than half a million dollars.
• Brooklyn, June 2026. In an East Flatbush case, forged documents, including a deed, were used to change a mortgage and move the home to a company, which then rented it out.

The same steps repeat: a transfer the owner did not make, a company as the new owner, and new borrowing or income from the home soon after. Each step is a recording, and each one can be seen in the record long before anyone knocks on the door.

Every scheme in the news runs through the public record: a deed, a transfer, a new loan, each one recorded. We use our data and leverage the links and joins between those records to uncover the anomalies that deed theft, deed fraud and predatory deed transfers leave.

Your Homeowner Research Document shows every record on your property, connected and dated, with alerts when anything new is recorded. How the research works.

• CBS New York: Deed theft complaints, from the Attorney General's office (April 2026)
• New York Attorney General: First indictments under the new deed theft law (August 2025)
• New York Attorney General: Arrest in an East Flatbush deed theft case (June 2026)

Checked in September 2026.