One aspect of searching public records is the failure of government to accurately record names involved in real estate transactions. It is not just the veil of corporations, ownership concealed by registered agents, and limited partnerships that shareholders can hide behind. There is also the aspect of minor alterations, misspelling, or changing initials in ownership names in transactional documents that make it very difficult to track the web of public domain information.
In dissecting the housing crash and how it happened and who is responsible, public records are very important. Information is only as good as what is entered by government agencies. Our searches disclose many haphazard entries, sometimes it seems the failure to accurately record ownership and transfer of titles must be deliberate. A good example: public officials who use different names on individual real estate transactions: Joe or Jose, with or without middle initials. The shortened "Jr." form, added or dropped, seemingly at will.
One of the outcomes of this economic crisis should be to require corporations to disclose majority and family-related ownership in real estate transactions. Foreign corporations should be legally required to disclose ownership, by individual name. There should also be harsh penalties for individuals who use two or more names in real estate transactions.
The public should ask the Florida legislature to tighten down on corporate fraud and white collar crimes: there would be much to gain in this respect by requirements of complete disclosure that pierce the corporate veil.
2 comments:
What about Carrie Meek using "Davis":
"Carrie P. Meek is also known as Carrie P. Davis according to a mortgage she paid off on February 08, 2006." Genius post June 26, 2007
What about Joe Martinez's wife disclosing a windfall profit on a deal and she wouldn't disclose the property or her partners (couldn't see if there was a conflict of interest with her husband) March 26, 2007 Genius Post:
"If you look at page 11 of County Commissioner Joe Martinez’ financial disclosure for 2005 (he submitted his joint tax return), there is a Schedule D for wife. His wife claims she had 1/3 of a land contract for a little over a year. She paid $50,000 for her third. She sold her 1/3 for $194,000. Her gain was $144,301. She almost tripled her money.
If she had 1/3, that would mean the whole piece was a $150,000 purchase and sold for almost $600,000....
And, where did the down payment come from? Was it family funds, Martinez was bankrupt in 1997, could there be a lot of extra cash? Did developer Jorge Perez lend her the money? We just don't know.
His wife will not divulge where this property is or anything about it, such as who her partners were in the deal. Because she only owned a 1/3 her name is not listed in any sale, corporation, etc. so it cannot be looked up.
Obviously if Martinez’s wife was in partnership with someone like Rodney Barreto or Lennar’s Stuart Miller on this land...it really is a conflict for her husband who votes on their issues. Even a smaller fish could be a problem for her husband. That is why it is important to know who her partners were. Did her husband vote on a zoning change that caused this property to skyrocket in price? He states he doesn't know anything about the property so maybe he did.
I do think it is ridiculous to let her keep these ties secret (given his power to make windfall profits for people) ties in a deal that make her, AND HER HUSBAND, an unheard of profit in a year.
Martinez claims he knows nothing about her deal. However, this husband and wife team commingle their funds via a joint return. As such, her real estate deals are his real estate deals."
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