Imagine visiting Graceland to tour Elvis’ mansion only to find out you can’t. A “sold” sign is on the Gates of Graceland. It almost happened in May 2024. A phony company allegedly claimed a debt against Graceland and attempted to auction it off. ”This claim was based on forged documents and fabricated identities, including forged signatures of Lisa Marie Presley, the late daughter of Elvis Presley,” explained Knightdale real estate attorney Lisa Galanis. A Tennessee judge sniffed out the seller impersonation fraud before the deal closed.
Earlier this year, Galanis and her husband, Greg, launched an online real estate protection app called Leeza.io. “The kind of seller impersonation fraud that Leeza protects against is the same scheme that nearly cost the Presley family Graceland.” Galanis was a deputy sheriff in Mecklenburg County and a prosecutor in Pennsylvania. “While I am a real estate attorney today, I still view myself as someone whose job is to serve the public,” said Galanis.
Scammers target the elderly, Black and Latino populations, and properties without liens. They enlist real estate agents to sell a property by posing online as buyers. The scammers frequently offer to sell the property below market value.
In 2023, the FBI reported 9,521 real estate fraud crimes totaling $145 million. Commercial, residential, rental and farm real estate are all susceptible.
Daily Reporting
“What if we could go out and see before your house closed that it had been listed on an MLS and notify you, ‘If this is your property and you didn’t list it, you need to know that it’s been listed on the MLS.’”
“It answers the question, “How do I protect my parents from having this happen to them?” explained Galanis.
Leeza is a subscription-based service that tracks properties that are susceptible to seller impersonation fraud. The cost is $14.99 a month and is offered nationwide.
When a subscriber signs up, Leeza has a computer algorithm that scans MLS listings daily to determine the status of the subscriber’s property. That is followed up with “a hand check with a human eye” as a backup.
“If the status of a property changes, we check with the property owner and with the broker listing the property by email to make sure the listing is legitimate,” said Galanis.
If the property owner did not post the listing and its possible fraud, they can try to block the sale by alerting the listing agent and the broker in charge of the listing agent. If the listing is bogus, and the sale closes, they both could be held liable for the sellers’ and buyers’ losses.
Costly Litigation
“If the scammer is successful. There is potentially a family that thought they bought your house, the bank lost the money they loaned for the mortgage, and you and the home buyer are seriously injured, and the scammer is gone,” said Galanis.
It’s also possible that a property owner may not realize they’ve been scammed until they receive a 1099 with a tax liability on the sale of their property.
Litigation by the owner to reclaim their property can take years in court and cost thousands and thousands of dollars, to say nothing of the property owner’s time and headaches.
“The act of someone fraudulently selling your home, a core element of your personal security, represents a significant and escalating risk. Beyond the financial damage, it inflicts immense emotional distress and triggers a lengthy, arduous process to reclaim your property,” said Francis Sheehan, a retired U.S. Secret Service agent.
“Leeza will help people who have a paid off house. When a loved one dies, it will help the family members protect the property that is noted as “the heirs of ____” before someone has laid claim to it or done a deed or contacted the tax office. Those are easy pickings for scam artists.”
For more information, visit Leeza.io.
