Title Pirates

标题 海盗

Planet Money

商务

2024-11-23

25 分钟
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A couple years ago, Gina Leto, a real estate developer, bought a property with her business partner. The process went like it usually did: Lots of paperwork; a virtual closing. Pretty cut-and-dry. Gina and her partner started building a house on the property. But $800,000 into the construction process, Gina got a troubling call from her lawyer. There was something wrong. At first, Gina thought the house had burned down. It turned out that the situation was... maybe worse. On today's show: Buying land seems pretty secure, right? There's so much paperwork and verification along the way. But a messy system of how titles are sold, transferred and documented makes a perfect entry point for a new kind of criminal: Title Pirates. Today's episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Liza Yeager. Fact-checking by Sarah McClure. Engineering by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Planet Money's executive producer is Alex Goldmark. Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
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  • Gina Lito is a real estate developer.

  • She buys properties, builds houses on themselves, and she's pretty hands off about all the paperwork.

  • She has her lawyer handle that stuff.

  • The lawyer comes, I give him the money, and he will close, and he will call me and say, it's closed, it's yours.

  • So impersonal.

  • Yeah, it is.

  • I've never met any of the sellers of the properties we have bought.

  • Gina and her business partner have bought eight properties in Connecticut, where they live.

  • And then two years ago, she found her ninth.

  • Our Realtor came to us and said, there is a piece of land for sale.

  • It's been in the same family for many years.

  • Did you go see the property?

  • So I drove by, but it was just an overgrown lot at the time.

  • An overgrown lot.

  • Now, even though she's pretty hands off, every time Gina buys property, she does her due diligence.

  • Like, is the land flat?

  • Are there any wetlands?