WFAA’s “Dirty Deeds” investigation has exposed thieves stealing a church, dozens of homes, a former restaurant, even an entire Sam’s Club building.
DALLAS — It is stealing in broad daylight.
But the state is still nowhere close to fixing the problem.
Thieves forge sellers’ signatures on property deeds, file them with the county clerk and take control of properties they don’t own.
WFAA’s “Dirty Deeds” investigation has exposed thieves stealing a church, dozens of homes, a former restaurant, even an entire Sam’s Club building.
While lawmakers added an ID requirement during the last legislative session, they missed the devil in the details, so the problem continues unabated. Texas, in fact, ranks second in the nation for deed fraud cases.
In our latest episode of Y’all-itics, the Jasons sit down with investigative reporter Tanya Eiserer, who’s been tracking these thefts for years.
And Eiserer says Texas lawmakers can’t let the good be the enemy of the perfect this session in order to pass legislation to make it easier to stop these thefts.
“It takes so much work to get anything through the legislature. I’m hopeful this session, in my perfect world, we get the ID requirement, plus the ability to reject, plus additional requirements for notaries,” Eiserer said on Y’all-itics. “If we got those, I would be thrilled. Does it solve everything? No. But it’s a starting point. And you have to start somewhere because we started on this four years ago.”
Be sure to listen to our latest episode of Y’all-itics to hear Tanya describe some of the more egregious examples of stealing and explain why counties still don’t have clear authority to stop these thefts. Cheers!