Why Do Fraudsters Love Empty Land?

How fraudsters sell land that isn’t theirs, and what title professionals need to know before the wire goes out

Casey Kimbrell was in Colorado when a friend called to ask about the land for sale. Kimbrell owns a farm in Hutchinson County, Texas. He wasn’t selling it. He hadn’t listed it. He hadn’t talked to a realtor, signed anything, or told anyone it was available. But…someone had done all of those things on his behalf and a for-sale sign was already in the ground.

The fraudster had called a small-town realtor, used a Google Voice number with a local area code, and casually dropped the kind of detail that passes a first-impression check: the regional mispronunciation of a nearby town. Locals say it one way. Maps say it another. The fraudster knew which way the locals say it and that was enough. The realtor listed the property, visited with a neighbor about it, and put up the sign.

When Kimbrell found out, he did what anyone would do. He called the Hutchinson County sheriff’s office who referred him to his local sheriff in Colorado. Colorado said it wasn’t their jurisdiction. He reported it to the FBI. The FBI did not respond.

Kimbrell got lucky because a friend happened to see the listing. The realtor, to her credit, became suspicious on her own and called him the same day. The sign came down and the fraud attempt failed.

But here is what the fraudster understood that most people don’t: vacant land is the easiest property in America to steal.

Why vacant land is the perfect target

Vacant land fraud, also called seller impersonation fraud or absentee owner fraud, is exactly what it sounds like. A criminal impersonates the owner of a piece of unoccupied property, lists it for sale through a legitimate real estate agent, and collects the proceeds at closing. The real owner has no idea any of it happened.

The criminal logic is straightforward. Vacant land has no tenant to notice an unfamiliar showing. No lender monitoring the title. No occupied address where suspicious mail or unexpected visitors raise alarms. All-cash transactions are standard for land sales, which removes the identity verification layer that mortgage lenders would otherwise provide. And the owner is often someone who inherited the parcel, lives in another state, or simply hasn’t visited in years. They may not know their property was sold until long after the money is gone.

According to the NAR’s 2025 Deed and Title Fraud Survey, 62% of title fraud cases involve vacant land. Only 12% involve owner-occupied homes.

By the time a fraudulent vacant land file reaches a title professional, the real estate agent has already been convinced. The listing is live. The offer has been accepted. The closing is scheduled. You are the last line.

How they build it: the fraudster’s workflow

It starts with public records research. Fraudsters search county property databases for parcels that meet a specific profile: no mortgage, high equity, absentee owner, and no recent transaction activity. This search takes minutes. The data is public and free. A skilled operator can identify dozens of targets in an afternoon.

Once a property is selected, they build a profile of the real owner. Name, mailing address, sometimes date of birth and partial Social Security number pulled from data broker sites that aggregate public records. They are not guessing. They know who they are impersonating before they make a single call.

Then they go wide. The FBI has documented cases where a single fraudster sent solicitations to more than 60 real estate agents simultaneously for the same property. It’s a volume play, not a targeted operation. Most agents will decline or ask too many questions. They only need one to say yes.

Fraudsters design the pitch to pass a first-impression check without inviting scrutiny. A Google Voice number with a plausible area code. A name that matches the tax records. A story that explains the urgency without raising flags: a job relocation, an estate situation, a medical expense. Something personal enough to feel real, vague enough not to verify. Kimbrell’s fraudster added a detail that almost no one outside the region would know: the way locals pronounce the name of a nearby town. One small thing. Enough.

The listing is priced below market value. Cash buyers only. Quick close preferred. These conditions filter out the buyers most likely to involve attorneys or ask hard questions, and attract the buyers most motivated to move fast.

At the closing stage, the fraudster presents forged identification: a driver’s license with the real owner’s name and a stranger’s photo, or falsified corporate documents if the property is held in an LLC. ALTA’s 2024 study found fake notary credentials used in 43% of cases. Remote online notarization, when available, becomes an opportunity. The fraudster can complete the entire closing without appearing in person, using their own notary or a complicit one.

The full setup, from property selection to listing agreement, can happen in under an hour. The closing, once scheduled, is simply the collection step.

The property was sold twice

In February 2024, a U.S. District Court judge sentenced a Maryland man to 40 months in federal prison for seller impersonation fraud on a vacant residential property in Washington, D.C.

Two people were hurt by this scheme. The first was the original owner, who had no idea their property had been transferred. The second was a subsequent buyer who purchased the property in good faith. That buyer acquired the property from the fraudster, who had already collected the sale proceeds from the first transaction and resold it as if he owned it.

By the time the FBI’s Washington Field Office uncovered the scheme, the fraudster had forged the original owner’s signature, forged the notary’s signature, transferred title to a company he controlled, collected the money, and sold the property a second time to someone who had no reason to suspect anything was wrong.

The court ordered $580,663.73 in restitution and $111,000 in criminal forfeiture. That is a specific number. It represents real money, real damage, and two people whose lives were disrupted by a scheme that a single verification step might have stopped.

Restitution orders get paid slowly, incompletely, or not at all. The damage is rarely made whole by a sentencing outcome. What prevents it is catching the fraud before the wire goes out.

What title professionals can actually do

Vacant land fraud is catchable. The fraudster’s workflow has weak points, and those weak points correspond directly to the verification steps that distinguish a careful closer from one who processes land files the same way they process every other transaction.

Use a known-good callback, not the number in the file.

Pull the owner’s contact information independently from county tax records or the title plant. Call that number. Do not use a phone number or email address provided by the seller. The fraudster controls that contact information. They do not control what the county has on file.

Request government-issued photo ID early and scrutinize it.

Ask for it at the opening of the file, not at the closing table. Run a reverse image search on the photo. A fraudster who pulled a headshot from a LinkedIn profile or a public social media account will fail this check immediately. Verify that the ID format, font, and security features match the issuing state’s current standards.

Cross-check the seller’s contact information against tax records.

The mailing address the seller provides should match the address on file with the county. A discrepancy, such as a different state, a different city, or a P.O. box that doesn’t match the tax record, is not proof of fraud. But it is a reason to slow down and ask questions.

Require a live video call before closing.

Confirm that the person on the call matches the ID provided. Watch for scripted responses, unusual delays, or last-minute technical problems that prevent the camera from working. These are not coincidences.

Treat urgency as a signal, not a service request.

A vacant land seller who needs to close quickly, will only accept cash, and communicates exclusively by email is describing a fraud profile. Urgency is a feature of the scheme, not a feature of the transaction. Slow down when a seller speeds up.

The sign is already in the ground somewhere

Casey Kimbrell got lucky. A friend saw the listing. A realtor had second thoughts. Law enforcement was unavailable, but the scheme fell apart anyway, this time.

Right now, in Hutchinson County and Montgomery County and in counties that don’t make the news, there are for-sale signs in the ground on land whose owners have no idea. The fraudster who put them there spent less than an hour selecting the target, researching the owner, and writing the pitch. They are not sophisticated criminals in the cinematic sense. They are patient, organized, and they understand something that title professionals need to understand just as clearly: vacant land transactions are treated as routine, and routine is where fraud hides.

The professionals who catch this fraud are not the ones with better instincts. They are the ones with better protocols, applied consistently, even when the file feels ordinary, especially when the seller is in a hurry.

The difference between the file that closes cleanly and the file that becomes a federal case is almost always a question that someone thought to ask, or didn’t.