The House Was Still Standing. The Deed Was Gone: What Harris County's Deed Theft Lawsuits Teach Every Family

Keata Wade and her sister were getting ready to fix up the family house on Teton Street in Houston's Sunnyside neighborhood. Their grandmother had bought it, lived there until she died, and their father lived there after her until his own death. The sisters went to get their paperwork in order and found out the house was no longer theirs.

The county's records listed a woman named Antia Martinez as the owner. A family the Wades had never met was living inside.

Wade told ABC13 Houston it was "the only piece of property left belonging to my father and grandmother." Hers is now one of the central cases in two lawsuits Harris County filed in September 2026 over what it calls a widespread deed fraud scheme. ABC13 reports that more than a dozen families are trying to get their homes back.

We watch county property records for a living, and this case shows a pattern we see over and over: forged paperwork, recorded in the public record, sitting there unnoticed until the family tries to use the property.

What Harris County alleges

On September 9, Harris County Attorney Abbie Kamin announced two civil lawsuits at a press conference. According to her office's news release, the suits accuse defendants of forging paperwork to get deeds to homes, then selling the homes or possibly renting them to tenants who didn't know.

• Harris County vs. Antia Martinez et al. names five properties that the county says were stolen with forged notarized documents.
• Harris County vs. Mario Cavazos accuses Cavazos of stealing five more homes. The county says that in an earlier case, Cavazos sold a property to Martinez, and that dispute was settled in a private lawsuit.

That's at least 10 homes, and county officials told KHOU they think there may be more victims. Kamin said the scheme involved tricking notaries into signing paperwork, faking identities on documents, and passing forged deeds back and forth to cover the trail. Her summary at the press conference, as reported by KHOU: "Bottom line, this is home theft."

The Teton Street case follows a common pattern. Wade told Click2Houston the alleged scammers forged her late grandmother's signature and deeded the house to a person who doesn't exist. Then the house was transferred again, this time to a real person investigators think is tied to a larger fraud network. Hoodline, citing Community Impact's review of the filings, reported that the fraudulent transfers on the Wade property were recorded in July 2023 and March 2025.

The Houston Chronicle reported that several defendants have faced earlier civil suits over deed theft going back years. Still, these are civil cases and the claims are allegations. Click2Houston reported that as of the announcement, no criminal charges had been filed in these specific cases.

Why inherited homes are the easiest targets

Kamin said that in some cases, scammers go after homes whose owners have died so they can take the deed before the heirs know what happened. That's the Wade family's story. Wade told Click2Houston the theft happened while she was coping with the deaths of both of her parents. The family only found out when an attorney from the County Attorney's Office called them earlier this year.

Harris County has seen this before. In May 2025, then-County Attorney Christian Menefee sued two men accused of forging deeds in Trinity Gardens. According to KHOU, one home in that case was allegedly transferred just 48 hours after its owner died. Another was transferred 31 years after the owner's death. In a separate case, the Houston Chronicle reported in 2025 that a couple accused of stealing 40 Houston-area properties was ordered to pay $1.2 million in restitution to the buyers they defrauded.

These cases have the same weak spots in common:

• Nobody is opening the mail. If the owner has died and the house sits empty, nobody sees the tax bill change or a strange letter arrive.
• Probate drags. If heirs haven't formally handled the estate, the record still shows a deceased owner who can't object to anything.
• Paid-off homes have no lender watching. With no mortgage, there's no bank servicer to notice that ownership changed.
• Recording isn't verification. Alliant National Title notes that county clerks are tasked with processing documents efficiently, not investigating whether they're authentic.

Why getting the house back takes so long

Proving a deed was forged is only part of the problem. When a fraudulent deed gets recorded, the house can be resold, mortgaged or rented out, and each step pulls in new people. County officials told KVUE that these schemes can create more than one set of victims, because buyers and renters may pay someone they believe has the right to sell or lease the home.

Wade told KHOU she doesn't know whether the family living in her grandmother's house is connected to the scheme or has no idea about the property's history. Either way, those people are in the house, and sorting out who owns it now goes through a courtroom. KHOU reported that the county is suing to stop the alleged fraud, hold those responsible accountable, and return properties to their rightful owners where the law allows.

That last condition matters. When a home has changed hands several times, getting it back is a legal fight, and catching the fraud early is what decides how hard that fight is.

What Texas has changed

Texas lawmakers passed several laws in 2025 aimed at this problem:

• SB 1734 (owner's affidavit and fast court review). According to Asurity's summary of the law, an owner who believes a recorded document fraudulently transferred their property can record an owner's affidavit and mail notice to the grantor and grantee. If no one records a counter-affidavit within 120 days, the owner can ask a district court to find that the document doesn't transfer title. The court can decide based on the filings alone, filing fees are waived, and the court's finding is recorded. The law took effect September 1, 2025.
• SB 647 (clerk notice and refusal). The Houston Chronicle reported that this law requires county clerks to notify the last known owner when certain filings list addresses that don't match the owner's. It also lets clerks refuse to record a suspicious document if the filer can't back it up.
• SB 693 (notaries). This law adds penalties and education requirements for notaries and requires them to keep records for 10 years, according to Asurity.

A practical checklist for families

If you own a home:

1. Look yourself up. Search your name and address on the Harris County Appraisal District site and the County Clerk's real property records, and confirm you're still listed as the owner.
2. Sign up for DeedLock. Do it for your parents' and grandparents' properties too, especially if they're paid off.
3. Keep your will current and handle estates through probate, which the County Attorney's Office specifically recommends. A clean record is harder to fake.

If a loved one has died and left a home:

1. Check the deed record right away, and keep checking until the estate is settled.
2. Don't let the house sit empty with nobody looking at it. Have someone pick up mail, check the property, and watch the records.
3. Take any letter about a "sale," a new tax account, or a stranger asking about the house seriously.

If you find a filing you didn't authorize:

1. Get copies of the recorded document from the County Clerk.
2. Report it to the Harris County Attorney's Office through its Stay Scam Free resources. "If you believe this has happened to you or to a family member, please reach out to my office," Kamin said, as reported by KVUE.
3. Talk to a real estate attorney about the SB 1734 owner's affidavit process, and move quickly, before the property can be sold again or borrowed against.

If you're buying or renting:

Check the ownership record yourself, use a licensed title company, and be wary of below-market deals, cash-only terms, or a "landlord" who can't show proof they own the place.

The real lesson from Teton Street

The forged deed on the Wade house was recorded in public, where anyone could have seen it. Nobody was looking. By the time the family found out, someone else lived in the house and the county had to sue to start untangling it.

That's why we built DeedLock, the original AI Title Surveillance®. It watches county property records around the clock and alerts you as soon as something is filed against your title, so you can act before anyone sells or borrows against your home. Cancelling coverage requires identity verification, so a scammer can't quietly turn it off.

Use the free county tools, keep your estate plans current, and make sure every property in your family, including the one Grandma left behind, has someone watching it. To protect your home or a family property, learn more about DeedLock at goldpatrons.com. If you're a lender, title company, agent or attorney, ask us how to give your clients that protection after closing.