Letter to Richer

Mr. Richer,

I have somehow been dragged into an argument with a bunch of conspiracy theorists that involves the Maricopa County Recorder's Office. Based on my research you seem to feel that there is nothing to hide regarding records and elections in Maricopa County, so I thought I might be so bold as to reach out to you directly and ask for some information in order to help settle one point in the debate I'm engaged in.

In 2020, on his way out the door, former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes is quoted as saying: "Given the limited circumstances under which a document can be rejected for recording, there have been situations when ‘bad actors’ submit fraudulent or forged records.

Therefore, the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office recommends that you proactively check records recorded with our office and those at the Assessor’s office:

RECORDER website (scroll down to search by Last/First Name) ASSESSOR website (search by entering Owner Name or Address)

If you believe that any fraudulent documents have been recorded involving the ownership of your property, please contact your local law enforcement agency or the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. More information about Financial Institution/Mortgage Fraud is available from the FBI.

The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office will do all it can by cooperating with law enforcement and on any investigation in the pursuit of justice."

https://www.scottsdalerealtors.org/2020/10/30/protection-against-property-fraud/

While I'm sure that you're not thrilled with your predecessor's last-minute acknowledgment of system vulnerabilities and the presence of fraudulent documents in the Recorder's Office information systems, I think it's important that you go on the record regarding whether what Mr. Fontes said is factually and materially true, and still the official position of the Maricopa County Recorder and his office.

As somebody who might desire to do business in Maricopa County in the future, I would certainly like to have an idea of whether the current Recorder is aware of the scope and nature of what I will colloquially refer to as the "fraudulent document problem", and also what is being done to mitigate it by the public servants and county employees tasked with managing these systems.

I hope you can see that it's hard for a simple citizen such as myself to know whether a document is fraudulent, seeing as though I don't have expertise in law or real estate, or the technology to build digital fingerprints to verify signatures with, so it would be nice to know that the Recorder's Office itself is doing something proactive to a) ensure fraudulent documents don't get recorded, b) keep and maintain a record of fraudulent documents as they are found, c) cooperate with local law enforcement agencies and investigators who might be concerned about the consequences of fraudulent data being stored in a publicly available, tax funded database when such records are found, and d) report to the public on the scope and nature of the problem on a regular basis (perhaps quarterly, as you already have a quarterly report the office puts out), so wise, prudent, virtuous citizens can make good decisions about whom to do business with, and where to conduct it.

I thank you for your prompt reply, and for answering my questions as soon as humanly possible.

Sincerely,

<my name>

I had another kid, my time has vanished 😂😂

Lot of things going on right now bud, sometimes you have to be the first if you want something specific looked at.

We're too busy arguing with glowbois about sneakers and fuzzy camera images.

MFDS, Maga Fatigue Disorder Syndrome.

This is an inherent feature of the real property recording system. Only a small minority of jurisdictions use the Torrens system for real estate. In the recording system, anyone can file anything. Filing a false instrument is a felony. But nobody is going to stop you from filing anything. The county recorder doesn’t really have a duty to investigate the authenticity of what gets filed. Obviously there is a duty to not allow knowingly fraudulent instruments to be filed. But that line isn’t black and white either.

The registration system used in 99% of the country is merely for notice. Just because there is some recorded deed showing you own a given piece of property is no guarantee you actually do. One has to “effectively” record, and that means that you have to acquire your interest via all sorts of rules involving prior chain of title. Some states have statutes that real property must have a conveyance deed filed in order to lawfully have title. But that is a more recent phenomena…historically it has not been so. It is possible to have title but not have recorded the conveyance.

This is how massive money laundering in the luxury real estate world happens. Numerous transfers over time to alter ego shell companies without recording the deed at ever increasing purchase prices. Prior entity has “clean” real estate profits after each transaction. It is also why real estate in certain areas appreciates at absurd rates…they are driving that price sky high in endemic level laundering. It would shock the shit out of you all how much this is done here.

Torrens, on the other hand, is like a registration system. One applies to convey a property to someone else. Instead of a deed, you get “title.” Government basically manages that. If they give you “title” that property is yours in 999/1000 instances.

Every deed registry in the country is vulnerable to fraudulent filings. So what Fontes said isn’t really meaningful. Like for example: Say Hobbs did file a deed of trust on her house from a company that didn’t exist. It isn’t the recorder’s duty to determine this before filing it. Nor after filing it. If they had to do this, it would take months to file; this would be highly problematic for purposes of “constructive knowledge” of various title conditions and subsequent conveyances. Such a delay in the current framework would lead to making it really easy to (1) sell the property to multiple separate buyers at the same time; (2) get simultaneous multiple mortgages without the banks finding out when title searching; and (3) create virtually uninsurable broken chains of title on various exploited real estate.

Edit: If you want to find malfeasance, go thru the grantor/grantee index and look for conveyances where the grantor is not the same as the prior conveyance grantee. This indicates a break in the chain of continuous title and is a huge enormous red flag for laundering. It is far more likely than not said property has some laundering connection.

Or put another way, when searching the grantor/grantee index, look for properties where the seller conveying the property to the latest buyer is not the same name as the last buyer on the prior conveyance. This name, if chain is unbroken, should be the exact same. The newest sale seller name should be the prior sale’s buyer name. If they don’t match, either (1) the latest conveyance is bogus, and that seller has no rights to sell; or (2) there are prior unrecorded conveyances indicating probable fraud/laundering.

Show us all of YOUR research, first.

Don't want to duplicate efforts, don't-cha-know....