An elderly Georgia homeowner was forced out of his house and arrested when an alleged swindler used fraudulent documents to claim ownership of the property.
Charles and Charmaine Allman lived in the same Stone Mountain, Ga. home — located 16 miles east of Atlanta — for the last two decades before officials told the couple Tuesday that they no longer owned the house and had to vacate.
“They made us feel like we were squatters,” Charmaine Allman told WSB-TV. “Just tossed my stuff out like it was trash.”
Most of the couple’s belongings were scattered all over the yard.
The outlet reported that an anonymous man allegedly falsified a deed and submitted the documents online with Dekalb County to claim ownership of the Allman’s home.
The couple became suspicious of the sketchy activity when they received letters in the mail confirming that a second mortgage had been taken out.
“We don’t have no more mortgage,” Allman said.
The new homeowner told the couple he had purchased the home from a foreclosure.
Charles Allman, who refused to leave when asked, was arrested on a Criminal Trespass warrant filed on March 13, according to jail records viewed by The Post.
“I don’t know how this is possible,” Charmaine Allman about her husband’s arrest. “How does this happen, period? It’s very upsetting to see my husband in handcuffs at 77 years old and placed in the car because he didn’t want to leave his home. He has nowhere to go. No family.”
Charles Allman was released from jail Thursday evening.
“It’s too easy to forge a deed and record it,” Real estate attorney Richard Alembik told WSB-TV. “It’s a big problem nowadays, because of the fact that e-filing, the e-recording of deeds is so easy. It’s very easy to record forged deeds.”
Alembik said notaries don’t check the identification of the people who submit the documents to verify if they are the rightful homeowners.
Victims of fraud who have proof to be the rightful homeowners can still be ordered by a judge to move out and pay fines, according to the outlet.
A NYC homeowner was arrested last week when she attempted to remove suspected squatters from her Queens property.
Adele Andaloro, 47, was nabbed after changing the locks last month on the $1 million home in Flushing, Queens, that she says she inherited from her parents when they died, ABC’s Eyewitness News reported.
The Queens District Attorney’s Office was turned away from the $1 million home in Flushing as several tenants claimed they were renters, not squatters.
