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Q&A

Council Member Narcisse on flagging suspicious ownership transfers and deed fraud

New York City Council · Jun 9, 2026 · starts 0:47:05 · 1 min 34 sec

Narcisse asks what role DOF plays in flagging suspicious ownership transfers. Commissioner Lee says statutorily DOF cannot prevent deed recordings meeting legal requirements, and hopes for state legislation to provide more authority. Shear adds that property owners can sign up for a notification program alerting them when deeds are recorded against their property.

Mercedes Narcisse

You know, I heard my deputy speaker was talking about the D-DEF, right?

Mercedes Narcisse

Homeowner has specifically the seniors.

Mercedes Narcisse

What role does finance play in flagging suspicious ownership transfer?

Mercedes Narcisse

And is it enough?

Mercedes Narcisse

What do you do from your office?

Mercedes Narcisse

Like if you realize it's a suspicious transfer.

Richard Lee

So, statutorily, right now we don't have an ability to, if a person is recording a deed, if they are meeting all the

Richard Lee

legal requirements, then we actually can't prevent that from happening.

Richard Lee

This is one of the legislative fixes that we're hoping to see in the state level to give us a little bit more authority in those cases.

Mercedes Narcisse

Thank you.

Mercedes Narcisse

Chair, one more time.

Mercedes Narcisse

I'm sorry.

Jeffrey Shear

We also urge property owners to sign up for our notification program.

Jeffrey Shear

So that way they come to us, they give us their mailing address or their email address.

Jeffrey Shear

And if there's a deed recorded against their property, we will notify them.

Mercedes Narcisse

And I want to say thank you to you, too, because your team has been coming to my office to help me out.

Mercedes Narcisse

And thank you for the work you're doing.

Mercedes Narcisse

But whatever it knew, I want to know about it because I want to help.

Mercedes Narcisse

Knarsey area happened to be having the highest of foreclosure indeed they're following so I just want to make sure I help out on that one