Imagine that you are the heir to your grandmother’s estate. You cared deeply for your grandmother in the years leading up to her death. Due to her deteriorating health, she moved into your home before her eventual passing. The family home became vacant and began to fall into disrepair while she lived in your home. After her passing, you volunteered to serve as the administrator of her estate and stepped forward to handle the legal issues with the property.
Although the property needs substantial rehab, it would make an excellent investment property for a developer. You and the family members decide that it would be best to sell the property and distribute the proceeds among the heirs.
After engaging a realtor, the last recorded deed is retrieved. The deed shows a recent transfer to “ABC Investments LLC.” The deed purports to contain your grandmother’s signature, but it was allegedly signed six months after her passing. The property was stolen by a fly-by-night investor with the hope of flipping the property to an unsuspecting person. The investor’s fraud created a severe title problem for you and the heirs. The property cannot be sold and the inheritance money distributed until the title is recovered.
Stolen title is one of many title problems that can be solved with a Quiet Title lawsuit. Quiet title lawsuits can settle almost any interest in a property. Some quiet title actions are deeply adversarial while others are used to correct a defect in the chain of title.
