Detroit Man Gets 11 Years For Use Of Phony Quit Claim Deed To Steal, Flip Church; Pastor: "I Lost My Life's Work"

In Detroit, Michigan, The Detroit News reports:

• A man involved in a complicated scam to sell a church he didn't own has been found guilty on 11 counts of fraud. Tracy Carmichael, 46, of Detroit in 2007 offered to sell the Temple of God Deliverance on Mount Elliot to a woman who was interested in the property as a land investment.

• The scam involved Carmichael finding a "straw buyer" with good credit to take out a mortgage on the church property, said Abed Hammoud, head of the Deeds and Mortgage Fraud Unit, a task force involving the Wayne County Prosecutor's, Sheriff's and Register's offices. "Carmichael got a quit claim deed without the knowledge of the real owner," Hammoud said. "Then he got the victim to take out a $149,500 mortgage on the property. She thought she was doing it to help out the church."(1)(2)

For the story, see Detroiter who tried to sell church guilty of fraud.

(1) Pastor Robert Lodge, who owned the property, later found out that the deed to the church and other documents were false. Lodge never authorized Carmichael to sell the property and discovered his signatures had been forged on the documents. Lodge only became aware of the crime when his congregation was served eviction papers because they hadn't paid the mortgage. "I lost my life's work," Lodge said. "I built a ministry for the last 16 years, and it literally was stripped from me. Not only did I lose property and money, but I've lost my church family. We're not set up anywhere else because of the financial hardship this has caused."

(2) At most, a successful criminal prosecution can result in the scammer being tossed in jail, and possibly, a court order compelling the scammer to pay restitution to the victim which, if the scammer is broke, is probably worthless. To go about having the title to the property restored in the name of the rightful owner would require the victim to file a civil lawsuit to establish the deed forgery, and if successful, to quiet the title to the property in the name of the victim, voiding the interest of all subsequent title holders and mortgagees in the process. Typically, in the case of a deed forgery, the bona fide purchaser defense is not available to the subsequent owner and lender so that a successful civil lawsuit in this regard would, while making the rightful owner whole by restoring his/her title to the property, leave the subsequent owner and lender (and possibly, the insurance company that issued any title policies in connection with the fraudulent title transfer and the associated mortgage financing) holding the bag.