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Not for sale.
A scam on the rise on the East End is targeting undeveloped parcels of land, and local real estate agents have been duped into representing the fraudsters posing as land owners.
The criminals ask real estate agents to help them in the quick sale of lien-free, vacant land, often for well below market value. Often real estate agents get wise to the scam before accepting the listing, but in other cases, agents unwittingly accept a fraudulent listing, and the scam is only recognized when the true landowners learn that their property has been offered for sale. In the worst case scenario — which may be yet to occur on the East End but has happened elsewhere — the buyers, agents and attorneys involved all fail to recognize any of the red flags, the true owner doesn’t know what’s going on, and the would-be buyer wires cash to the fake seller, who is never heard from again.
Patrick Mclaughlin of Douglas Elliman in Sag Harbor recently heard from a scammer trying to sell land. He said these requests don’t come directly to agents, but rather through a website like Realtor.com or Zillow. In this recent incident, the scammer had a phone number with a Los Angeles area code — which Mclaughlin took as a sign that the offer was not legit.
He knows of another agent, this one on Shelter Island, who took a listing and only learned that it was not legitimate when he was walking the property and the actual owner saw him. The owner asked what he was doing there, and the agent said the property is for sale, to which the owner said that it is his land and by no means for sale.
Kevin and Heather Corliss, brother and sister, are land owners who both had scammers attempt to sell their Southampton properties out from under them. Each owns an unimproved lot on Big Fresh Pond Road. Kevin Corliss lives in Minnesota and Heather Corliss lives in California, and they learned that their properties had been listed for sale through a skeptical agent and family friends who work in the real estate industry.
First, back in November 2023, a scammer tried to list Kevin Corliss’s property but did not get far. The listing agent had reservations and ordered a background report, which uncovered his relatives, and the agent reached out to Corliss’s mother, who confirmed the person trying to list the property was an impersonator.
Within a couple of weeks, the impersonator found a different agent to list the property.
“Within six hours, he had it in contract to sell,” Kevin Corliss said.
The scammer’s story, according to Kevin Corliss, was that he was in Texas receiving cancer treatment and needed to sell the land quickly.
The first time the property was fraudulently listed, the price was $500,000. The second time, it was listed for $650,000, which was still likely half of market value.
“The second listing, I didn’t come to realize happened until June, and at that point in time it had been going on for quite a while,” he said. The potential buyer had gotten as far as having the land flagged to mark the wetlands.
Though he doesn’t recall an incident when someone could have stolen his Social Security number, the scammer had it and other identifying information, including his Minnesota address.
In each attempt the impersonator made to sell Corliss’s property, the agents asked for identification. The impersonator did not provide it right away, but days later sent a fraudulent ID.
“By that point in time, they had made a fake Minnesota driver’s license with a picture that wasn’t me, and it was not a number that matched a real driver’s license,” Corliss said.
Agents even had phone calls with the Kevin Corliss impersonator.
Heather Corliss said they had been keeping an eye out since the first episode last November. Then on May 24, her parcel was found on a listing website. Their mother got an email, from another agent the family knows, who was surprised to see the property was for sale.
When Heather Corliss investigated, she not only saw her lot for sale, she noticed that, for the second time, her brother’s lot was listed. She contacted the real estate agent and had both listings taken down.
“We’ve almost had to become our own investigators to try and figure out what’s going on,” she said.
Heather Corliss has contacted the FBI, The Internet Crime Complaint Center, the New York State attorney general’s office and she and her brother both filed police reports where they live.
She said no one will take on an investigation and because they are out of state, they can’t file reports with the local police.
“There isn’t a very efficient way to make a complaint or to try to put a stop to it, which is a little disconcerting,” Kevin Corliss said.
The Suffolk County clerk’s office offers the Homeowners Watch List, known as HOWL, which will send an email “when a deed or any land record affecting their property is recorded and/or filed with the Suffolk County Clerk.” Homeowners can register at suffolkcountyny.gov/Elected-Officials/County-Clerk/Homeowners-Watch-List-HOWL.
Last year, New York State adopted laws to combat deed theft, which allows the attorney general or local district attorneys who are investigating deed theft to pause related eviction and ownership dispute proceedings. However, this latest scam does not involve deed theft, only impersonation of the owner. The fraudster is not attempting to steal the property itself, but rather the buyers’ money. And because the scammer could live anywhere in the world, it is not easy to identify a suspect and prosecute the crimes.
Recognize Signs of a Scam
Southampton Town Police issued a warning to real estate agencies this month, alerting them to signs of this scam: The scammers want to list the land for below market value and will only accept all-cash offers, but they don’t want a “for sale” sign posted on the property. They avoid communicating in person or video chat and want a remote closing and to use a remote notary.
Police advise agents to ask for multiple forms of identification and proof of ownership — though they warn that scammers have provided fake passports — and to ask for a face-to-face meeting. Use social media to find a photograph of the owner for reference. Speak to the neighbors, and ask the supposed seller about the area surrounding the vacant property, to prove familiarity.
Southampton Town Police stated that agents who believe they are the victim of a property scam should take down the listing and promptly notify police.
