How Squatters Steal Homes & Get Away With It

Aviva (00:00)
This week's listener of the week is Wise Advice. Wise Advice, thank you so much for leaving us a five star review. And for those of you listening, if you leave us a five star review below, you might be next week's listener of the week. Week, week. This week on Commercial Real Estate Secrets, we have George McCleary. George is the CEO of Defender Networks.

and he is notable for his viral video exposing how effortlessly a squatter can occupy or steal a house. And the video's called, Stole a House. So George, thank you so much for being on the show today.

George McCleary (00:47)
Thanks so much Aviva, happy to be here.

Aviva (00:50)
Yeah, George, I'm excited to talk about this topic. Give the audience a high level who you are and how in the world you got here today.

George McCleary (01:01)
for sure. So I've been in the real estate business for about 22 years now, which is crazy to say, but I've been an investor, a developer, broker, property manager, just managing my own properties, but really in the flipping and developing game as where I eventually landed in real estate, but got a portfolio of residential and industrial assets that I currently own and manage a couple of them, but mainly I've farmed them out.

And then last winter I went viral with a video about squatting because I was getting a little fed up with the politics around here and how it concerns my livelihood. So I made a video called I stole a house and it was exposing how squatters are taking over properties in my town and towns across the United States. And that video completely exploded, got tens of millions of views. It landed me on News Nation. Dr. Phil was mentioned on Joe Rogan and yeah, I was

flowing all over the place, talking about this stuff, learned about deed fraud in the process, and basically made a course helping people prevent squatters from occupying their properties and telling them what to do if they have squatters, and then also making software to protect against title fraud.

Aviva (02:20)
Wow, where do we begin? You know, cause you got me at software to protect against title fraud, but I want to rewind and talk about the squatter. So, so how did this video come to fruition?

George McCleary (02:25)
Yeah

So I've never actually had a full-blown squatter situation, shall we call it, which is like a scammer squatter that's intent on stealing your property from you. But I have several colleagues who have, and I couldn't believe just how sophisticated the scam had become with like a fake lease and putting utilities in their name, pulling one over on law enforcement, essentially gaining the rights as tenants. And scammers and squatters, they use the internet just like we do.

and they realize that they're not getting caught for this. so squatting has just continued to rise and there's no one agency that's keeping track of this nationwide or locally for that matter. And so it's just all anecdotal. So you talk with lawyers, property managers, and they're all gonna tell you the same thing and that it is exploding nationwide. It's more sophisticated than ever. And I found after talking with people coast to coast after going viral, cause they said, hey man, saw your video.

You won't believe what happened to my mom with her squatter. I'm like, let's zoom. Let's talk about it. And I talked with dozens of people nationwide and just basically consolidated all their stories into squatter defender to give people the best advice. And it costs people about like 50 to a hundred grand each time they get a squatter. And it's just completely unshamed and not a whole lot of people are talking about this. So I made it my mission.

Aviva (03:55)
50 to 100, it's gut wrenching that somebody, specifically you talk about somebody's parent, right? An elderly person could be quite literally rinsed of the basic, basic right to own property by a criminal.

George McCleary (04:00)
Hmm.

Yes.

Yeah, it's pretty shocking.

Aviva (04:21)
So say I'm an owner of a house and I'm going, because I'm assuming this is worse in residential. Commercial they have, am I wrong where it's a little easier to deal with that in commercial?

George McCleary (04:33)
Usually, but there's actually a high profile case just a couple months ago where Gordon Ramsey's restaurant ended up getting squatted in. He moved out of the space and then squatters moved in and they couldn't get rid of them. They had a pop-up shop. They were taking people in and yeah, and then I've heard about it happening in warehouses as well. And the trouble with that is a lot of times these warehouses sit vacant for a long time.

people don't really monitor them. And so yes, it does happen in both commercial properties as well.

Aviva (05:07)
Okay, okay, great. Now, new fear unlocked. So what are some things we should be looking for as landlords that might set off a, this could be a squatter flag?

George McCleary (05:10)
hehe

Well, I'd say protecting your property number one from being a target is the first one. And what I do in the Squadron Defender course is I just do a list A to Z of all the stuff that you can do to make it so your property isn't targeted. And the biggest one by far is making it look like somebody is there. And that's just really basic. And so if you've got, you know, like an overgrown lawn or like, you know,

cobwebs everywhere and it's very clear that nobody is coming around this property. What squatters are looking for is the opportunity to be in a house or any property for that matter and not be detected for as long as possible. The perfect scenario for a squatter is just to never be detected in the first place. If they are detected, the longer they're there, the more they can pull one over on law enforcement and say like, we'll see. As you can see, I've been here forever. I got all my stuff here. There's a bag of chips on the coffee table. They got all my furniture. My friends live here.

that's going to a law enforcement officer is going to see that and say, well, all right. Well, seems like he is occupying the space and I can't just pull him out of the house by the collar on suspicion because the shirt on your back is presumed to be your own unless there's a really good reason to think otherwise, right? So same with housing. It's easier to confer for them to go in the house than it is to pull somebody out of the house and arrest them on just suspicion of being a squatter when

from all our appearances, you just got two people that are have a disparate difference of opinion on the subject.

Aviva (06:53)
Unbelievable. So can you tell me about the, where does title fraud tie into this?

George McCleary (06:57)
Yeah.

So that came about by way of me talking to people nationwide after it went viral and them sharing their stories with me. Because I'd never even heard of this. I'd said like, title fraud, what? And this guy said, well, actually, we got title fraud because the squatter put the deed of the house into his name. I was like, how do you do that? And it's like, well, it's just a piece of paper. It's just like the notary stamp is really easily forged and deeds are just regular sheets of paper. And I'm like, wow, I guess it is.

Being in real estate for a couple of decades now, I know enough about the title process and title insurance to know that it's not the most secure process nationwide. It's not on the blockchain. They're not notifying owners when title is changing. They don't have contact information for everybody in the city. So the more that it was explained to me, the more I thought like, whoa, this is like kind of the perfect crime here and you can steal the entirety of someone's equity and it's not covered by title insurance. How is this possible? So I...

started digging into it. And yes, there is a title insurance policy that does cover it, but like the vast majority of people don't have it. If you look at your closing statement, you're probably going to see an ALTA owner's policy on there. So that's doesn't offer coverage for fraud and impersonation after the policy date. It's got a, there's another policy by another name that does cover it. But basically you have no coverage and it's super easy to put the deed of the home into another name.

Aviva (08:11)
crazy.

George McCleary (08:30)
and then either take out loans against the property or sell the property to an end buyer who has no clue this is going on. And it's one of those things that's where it was like a handful of cases a few years ago. And now it's like exploding like everybody's doing it now. And they're not catching the title thieves unless they're really stupid. And which definitely does happen. But with any level of sophistication, they're making off with like the entirety of the home equity.

Aviva (08:37)
my god.

that makes me feel sick to my stomach.

George McCleary (09:00)
Yeah, it's pretty wild.

Aviva (09:03)
talk about the...

Title is so archaic the way it is currently run. And that's why when you brought up a software, you you said block, you said a few things that I have some wheels turning. You brought up the blockchain and a title software and tell me about that. And if they intersect, if I'm going in the right direction.

George McCleary (09:07)
Mm-hmm.

yeah.

yeah.

Yeah.

So the way that title is held and recorded and passed around, this has been this way for like centuries, like forever. And to change the title on a property, the security measure is a notary stamp. This is a stamp. It's not a hundred dollar bill. It's not a U.S. passport. It's very easily forged. And it's been like this for so long and they've just never updated it. And...

Chain of title, however, is really sacred. You can't just like change, change, change your chain of title without doing it through the recorder's office. And so once this happens, once the title is changed, you can't just call them back up and say like, hey, can you just change this back? No, there's like a full lawsuit that needs to happen with it's called an action to quiet title. So basically,

there's no way to prevent it from happening the way that it's set up now because it's set up like in these insy weensy little counties like nationwide and there's no like sweeping national like, you know, policy or anything that is planning to fix it. So if you, if they did do that and put it on the blockchain, then yeah, it would be fixed pretty much overnight, but they're not going to do that. And I'm not aware of any policy initiatives to make that happen. So what my software does is it prevents like the bad part of it from happening, which is the theft of your equity.

And so if somebody, if you can basically monitoring your title manually and just refresh the county page every single morning with your coffee and say, okay, well, it looks like my title is still in Aviva LLC. We're good to go. But if it ever changes, then you would know about it by refreshing it manually, but nobody wants to do that. So basically I created software that constantly monitors it all the time. And the second that it gets altered, you know about it immediately so that you can file an affidavit.

you can get your action and quiet title, you can make sure that they don't sell the place. And so you can just raise the red flags and make sure that all the bad stuff from title fraud that will like ruin you financially, you can make sure that none of that happens. instead of like costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars, depending on how much equity you have, it'll just cost you, the action quiet title to, you know, to fix the thing over the next few weeks.

Aviva (11:42)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I don't have a criminal mind. Like I can barely kill bugs. I, you know, I can't, I can't conceptualize this from the side of the criminal. but I do see, you know, I've seen instances of things like this. I, I was working on a property one time. it was a husband and wife and the husband had a best friend and on his death bed.

George McCleary (11:48)
you

Aviva (12:11)
The husband was comatose, but on his deathbed, his best friend came into the room and signed their biggest asset over to himself. And she didn't have enough money to fight it in court and wound up losing a significant property.

George McCleary (12:30)
Yeah, yeah, that's essentially the same thing except for it being a friend and doing it through I guess deception. They it's a stranger and they do it without having to be next to you on the deathbed because the county recorder doesn't know what my signature look like looks like doesn't know what your signature looks like. It sees a scribble. Their measure of security again is that just that notary seal so like okay well this guy saw it so it must be legit and here's his rubber stamp so

So yeah, trust in the stamp.

Aviva (13:02)
It is, I, every single day and taken aback by how real estate, 99 % of the time, the biggest purchase a person will make in their life, how it is still the wild West and how you can still get away with that and how our systems, it's like you said, they're archaic and,

George McCleary (13:17)
Mm-hmm.

They are.

Aviva (13:29)
Clearly people are noticing that and working around them for fraud. Tell me about Defender Networks.

George McCleary (13:41)
Yeah, so that's why I formed Defender Networks. Basically, the focuses are squatters and defraud. So we talked a bit about Squatter Defender. It's a squatter protection, detection, and ejection. So how to prevent squatters, how to detect if they're there, and how to get rid of them. It's $199. And at the end of the episode, I'll give a promo code so that your listeners can get 20 % off. And then the title fraud software is called Title Fraud Defender. And

It basically does the same thing as there's another company called Home Title Lock that they sell home title protection for $20 per month. And I thought to myself like, okay, it's great that they're doing that, but man, that's expensive. I feel like I could probably do it for less. And so I got state of the art software made and that part was expensive, but I'm actually monitoring the title is not that expensive. And so I'm able to offer it to users at more like five bucks a month rather than $20 per month.

Aviva (14:13)
Hmph.

George McCleary (14:38)
So basically they're getting the same level of protection and all the bells and whistles of helping you if you do get your title stolen, guide you and tell you what to do. it's just, so for one property is five bucks a month, but it's actually really great for real estate investors because unlike Home Title Lock, can accommodate like a whole portfolio of properties. And if you sign on a bunch of properties for a longer term contract, it goes down to like two bucks a month per door or something like that.

which is really great for commercial properties because a lot of times they're bigger and more expensive. so instead, if you have like 10 single family houses, it might be worth like, you know, a couple million bucks, but a single commercial building can be worth that, you know, very easily. so, and so, yeah, so the cost is really marginal, but the protection that it provides is it can be extraordinarily valuable.

Aviva (15:27)
You you put out a viral video. We've started to hear rumblings of this, the squatting situation in the country. Is there any legislation that is coming to be or going to place to prevent these archaic laws that don't protect property owners?

George McCleary (15:50)
Yes, it's the progress is glacial, but it is happening specifically in Florida. I believe it was last spring or summer. They passed legislation that essentially was like an anti squatting law that is as if you're a homeowner and you say, Hey, I've got a squatter. And basically it puts the honest on you to, you know, prove that they're a squatter, but they will get rid of them.

If they get rid of them and they find out like, okay, you actually just got rid of like legitimate tenant, then yes, you get in huge trouble because you can't just do that. That's the reason we have landlord tenant law. But it basically gives the benefit of the doubt to the homeowner who is, you know, they're not going to do this unless it's a legitimate squatter situation. And so, so far, I've heard that like it works. People in Florida are at much less at risk of squatters. Of course, there's holes in it and nothing's perfect. No law is ever perfect, but

At a minimum, if you're a squatter in Florida, you're going to think twice. Whereas in California, it's practically encouraged. You get a free ride for months or years in some cases. There's several documented cases where it's gone on for two, three, four, five years. And that's not a cheap place to live. it really comes down to where you live and what the laws are. really, are there laws? Yes, there's just...

Aviva (16:49)
Yeah.

No.

George McCleary (17:13)
Not a whole lot of them.

Aviva (17:16)
I hope there are more to come. I appreciate people like you fighting the good fight because as someone whose family relies off of rental income, it's like you said, one squatting situation could be financially catastrophic. And it's not fair because we pay taxes and you know.

George McCleary (17:33)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, we

pay taxes for bridges and roads and police and you know, for laws to be enforced and when they're not, it's really frustrating. And the vast majority of rental property homes in the United States are owned by mom and pops who have less than three rental properties. It's not big hedge funds in spite of what everybody wants you to believe. So when people are victimized by squatters, odds are it's somebody who's not a gazillionaire.

It's just a mom and pop landlord who's being taken advantage of and for the vast vast majority of Americans a 50 to 100 000 hit is a Ship sinker. It absolutely ruins you and I talked with those people that it did ruin and they would cry grown men and women and it was heartbreaking So that was what really fueled my fire to get this whole initiative started

Aviva (18:07)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

George, this is cool. This is really cool. What makes you happy with what you do every day in commercial and residential real estate?

George McCleary (18:43)
Boy, you know, I'd say the biggest thing I can do is that that makes me happy is being able to make a difference in a way now that I wasn't able to before. Because being a real estate investor and a landlord like, yeah, I give people a place to live and that feels good. And most people are really cool about it. And I really like that. But with this new kind of side quest that I'm on, I really do think in my heart of hearts that I'm I'm helping people protect themselves from ruin because we've all had in real estate, those

gut punches. If you stick around long enough, like something bad is going to happen to you. And nothing really, really horrible knock on wood has happened to me. But man, if I had a long series of gut punches over the years, and you just take that heavy heart and that feeling of tightness in your chest, when something really terrible happens to like one of your properties or something with your business, really just multiply that by 10. And that's what's happening to people that are victims of these crimes that we're talking about today. So

Being able to help people avoid a scenario like that, that makes me happy.

Aviva (19:48)
Amazing. George, where can the listeners find you, follow you, get to Defender Networks, use the promo code, et cetera?

George McCleary (19:58)
yeah, your promo code. Thanks for reminding me. So if you enter the promo code of Aviva, that's on squatterdefender.com or titlefrauddefender.com that will get you 20 % off of everything. So, and that's for lifetime. So not so bad. And if you want to find me, I would love to hear from you. If you've got like a squatter story, a title fraud story, or really just like questions like, Hey man, heard you like people contact me all the time. They're like, you know, what is that? Explain this more. I'm like, yeah, man, let's talk about it.

I'm very easy to find. I've just Googled George McCleary. I'm the most famous George McCleary out there on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and then my company, McCleary Realty and Development. That's my real estate company. That's where you're going to find most of my social media stuff. But yeah, find me on all the major platforms, LinkedIn as well, and send me a message. Send me a friend request. Let's connect.

Aviva (20:48)
George, this has been really, really fun and eye-opening and interesting. Thank you for being on the show today. Yeah, and for everybody listening, we'll see you next week.

George McCleary (20:55)
My pleasure, Aviva.