FORGED MORTGAGES
The forged mortgage is the bane of any land registration system particularly those systems based on the old system of recorded deeds.

Under the old system the transfer of land by fraud, that is by forgery, usually resulted in a voiding of the deed. In other words the bank lost their money and the poor purchaser would most likely lose the land.

The Torrens system of title by registration is more resistent to fraud as purchaser for value or a mortgagee could still obtain good title even if a forgery was involved.

For instance if your next door neighbour was to steal your duplicate certificate of title and get a bank to mortgage the land then theoretically you as the real proprietor may be responsible for paying the mortgage even though your once-best-friend neighbour was whooping it up in the Bahamas on the proceeds.

This is the theoretical position of course, and this problem will be discussed in further pages. However in the meantime it is best to keep tight security on those title documents.

There are also numerous scams which revolve around mortgagors (the person who borrows the money) attempting to get rid of the mortgage from their title and other scams arising from mortgagees (the ones who loan the money) attempting to resist having their mortgage discharged from the title. These will be studied in closer detail later.

For an interesting discussion on Forged Mortgage Scams follow the link below.

First American Report on Forged Mortgages and Title Fraud