Grumet: Forged deeds come cheap. Getting your home back in your name will cost you.

You think the place you bought is yours.

But for less than $50, someone can file a forged document declaring you sold the property to them. In a matter of days, that bogus owner’s name will replace yours in the official county records.

Now it's your mess to clean up — and even though you're the victim, fixing the damage will cost you thousands of dollars in legal fees.

Police trying to find the person who filed the forged document might end up chasing the ghost of a cybercriminal. And the county offices that so readily accepted the fraudulent warranty deed have no clear path for you to prove your rightful ownership — apart from you hiring a lawyer to ask the courts to declare that your home is, indeed, your home.

Greg and Jennifer Thompson have been living this nightmare for the past four months. As they started the process in June to protest their appraised value for tax purposes, they discovered they were no longer listed in county records as the owners of their home.

A forged deed, bearing the Thompsons’ forged signatures, claimed a new owner bought their beautiful home just outside Austin on May 30.

“Our world came to a stop,” Jennifer Thompson told me.

3 tips for homeowners: Prevent becoming victims of property deed fraud

Her mind started racing: “When we come to the house, will the furniture still be here? Will we be allowed in? Will the locks have been changed?”

They immediately called the Travis County sheriff’s office and their lawyer, who promptly got a court order to block anyone from borrowing money against the house.

A sheriff’s investigation concluded the May 30 deed was forged: The attorney and the notary named on the deed told authorities they had nothing to do with the paperwork, which had been submitted to the Travis County clerk’s office through an electronic filing service. The expiration date on the notary’s stamp wasn’t even correct.

Nor was there any sign the supposed buyer was a real person, prompting the sheriff’s detective to tell the Thompsons to take their case to the FBI’s cybercrimes unit.

Yet even with those findings, the clerk's official records and the property appraiser's records show the Thompsons’ home under the name of a phantom crook they can’t shake.

Rebecca Guerrero, who oversees the recording division at the Travis County clerk's office, told me, "Our hands are tied because we're just considered like a library. All we do is record the documents." The clerk's office can't remove a document without a court order — a process that puts the burden of resolution on the victim.

“It's uneasy. It's unsettling,” Jennifer Thompson said. “We hope nobody comes to the door to tell us this is their house.”

Verification is someone else’s job

Cases like this are rare, but clerks are noticing an uptick. Over the preceding 10 years, only a half-dozen forged deed cases appeared among the hundreds of thousands of documents filed with the Travis County clerk’s office, Clerk Dyana Limon-Mercado told me.

Then this year: Four cases, all of them coming through the same electronic filing service, Limon-Mercado said.

I suspect the number is even higher: At least six suspicious warranty deeds, including the one on the Thompsons’ home, were filed in just a 30-day period in Travis County. All of them had the same notary stamp with the wrong expiration date. All bore the name of a Florida attorney who later filed an affidavit swearing he had never filed any official documents in Texas.

“The suspects are just pulling attorney and notary names off the internet and high-value real estate fishing,” sheriff’s Detective Charles Smith, of the white-collar crimes unit, wrote in a June 20 email updating Greg Thompson on his case.

It can be startlingly easy for someone to file a forged document. The clerk’s office, which receives hundreds of new documents a day, has neither the legal mandate nor the staff to verify a record is authentic. If a document meets basic legal requirements, such as being signed and notarized, the clerk must accept it.

Records filed with the clerk are then shared with the Travis Central Appraisal District, which updates its property ownership records accordingly. But the appraisal district doesn’t vet the records, either — it relies on what the clerk provides, Chief Appraiser Marya Crigler told me.

State law says county clerks may ask to see ID when someone files an official record in person — something the Travis County clerk started requiring in August, after the latest flurry of forged documents. But two-thirds of the deed transactions in Travis County are submitted electronically, which means the clerk’s office must rely on a third-party vendor to verify the person filing the record is legally allowed to do so.

“Right now, it's fully on the company,” Limon-Mercado said.

All of the problematic deeds that surfaced this summer came through the Utah-based electronic filing service Simplifile. Limon-Mercado said her office alerted the company to the fraud and urged it to verify the identities of those submitting the records.

Mitch Cohen, the head of communications for Simplifile’s parent company, ICE Mortgage Technology, told me via email that “Simplifile is just the delivery mechanism in this process … the way the U.S. mail or FedEx might have been used pre-digital recording.”

He said he wasn’t aware of anyone from the Travis County clerk’s office contacting the company with concerns.I asked: How does Simplifile know a client filing a record through their system is the person they claim to be? Cohen said the company has a “know your customer” policy.

How does Simplifile know a customer isn't providing a stolen or fake identity? He did not respond.

‘Your library card is more secure’

The holes in the system are maddening. At each step, ensuring the document is valid seems to be someone else’s job.

Another Austin property owner dealing with one of these forged deeds told me, ruefully, that a person's library card is more secure than their property. At least to get a library card, you must show a photo ID and proof of residency.

Some improvements are coming, though: A new state law gives clerks the ability to ask for IDs when someone files a document electronically.

Limon-Mercado said the Travis County clerk’s office expects to launch a new software system next year for handling official records. The office is still figuring out how to incorporate an ID check for electronic filings into that system, but given this year’s events, it’s a priority.

“Unfortunately, the criminal component of our community is getting more savvy, and we just have to do more to protect residents,” she said.

And at long last, Travis County’s new system will offer something that’s been available in about 40 other counties: Residents will be able to sign up for an automatic alert anytime a document is filed in that county in their name, bringing any surprise activity to their attention.

Still, at that point, residents would end up in the predicament the Thompsons are in now: How do you get the record fixed?

Victims shouldn’t have to pay

Committing an act of fraud involving a property worth more than $300,000 is a first-degree felony, punishable by at least five years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines. Regardless of the difficulty law enforcement faces in finding and arresting such cybercriminals, it’s worth remembering, this is a crime.

So why does our system require victims to shell out thousands of dollars to get their property back in their name?

Everyone I spoke with — the clerk’s office, the appraisal district, the sheriff’s office, even a couple of judges — agreed the only remedy for someone like the Thompsons is to go to civil court. At their own expense. Which is shocking.

“The system is broken in that respect,” said Greg Thompson, who has spent more than $10,000 on attorneys and still doesn’t have his home back in his name, as he expects another legal filing will be needed. “And having to hire a lawyer to file a lawsuit to get a district judge to invalidate the lien is not an easy thing for anybody to have to do.”

Texas needs to create a path for these victims. Maybe lawmakers can start by thinking of how they'd want to be treated if they were the ones living this nightmare. I can think of a few potential avenues, all of which would require legislative action:

• Grant the attorney general or district attorneys the authority to represent victims in the court process to invalidate a forged deed, so the victims can go to court without incurring attorney’s fees.

• Create a process in which a property owner could file a form and take such a case to a judge without needing an attorney, if they had the testimony and evidence gathered by a law enforcement officer.

• Empower the clerk’s offices to develop a process, in partnership with law enforcement and other agencies, to investigate and remove a forged warranty deed once a complaint has been filed.

These cases might be rare, but that is no excuse for expecting the victims to pick up the pieces at their own expense. These property owners have already been victimized by a stranger behind a screen trying to steal their property. They shouldn't be victimized again by a system that requires them to pay thousands of dollars in legal fees to prove their home is really their home.

Grumet is the Statesman’s Metro columnist. Her column, ATX in Context, contains her opinions. Share yours via email at bgrumet@statesman.com or via Twitter at @bgrumet. Find her previous work at statesman.com/news/columns.

Protecting your property

Most official records filed with county clerks are submitted electronically, creating an opening for cybercriminals to try to claim ownership of a property by filing a forged deed. Such criminals tend to target properties without a mortgage, which makes it easier for them to try to fraudulently sell it or borrow against it.

• Check yourself. Just like people check their credit cards for any unauthorized charges, or check their credit reports for any unfamiliar accounts, it’s a good idea to periodically check the property appraiser’s database to ensure your home still bears your name. Visit the Travis Central Appraisal District website at traviscad.org; the Williamson Central Appraisal District at wcad.org; or the Hays Central Appraisal District at hayscad.com.

• Sign up for alerts. Property owners in Williamson and Hays counties can sign up for free to receive automatic alerts anytime a property record with their name is filed. The Travis County Clerk’s Office plans to offer a similar service starting next spring. For Williamson, visit wilcotx.gov/298/Fraud-Alert-System-Sign-Up. For Hays, visit hayscountytx.com/departments/county-clerk.

• Report a problem. Call the police if you find signs of fraudulent activity with your property. Law enforcement can try to pursue a criminal case. But until lawmakers offer a better way, getting the official record corrected involves going to civil court at your own expense.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Fixing the damage falls on victims of forged property deeds in Texas