A North Carolina church narrowly avoided losing a property it had been preparing for development for two decades when fraudsters forged a deceased woman's signature in an attempt to sell the land. Timothy Peppers' father originally purchased the land in Orange County in the 1960s with the intention of building the new sanctuary for West Saint Mark Church of Christ in Chapel Hill.
The church had been working on developing the site since 2005. The scheme unraveled this year when Peppers received a letter from a law firm stating it had been retained to handle the sale of his property, a transaction he had not authorized and was unaware of.
Investigators discovered that the property had been sold for $110,000 on April 17, with a deed filed at the Orange County Register of Deeds. A key piece of evidence that alerted Peppers to the fraud was a signature on the purchase agreement belonging to his mother, Molly Peppers, who had passed away in 2021.
"That’s not my signature, and my mother’s deceased," Peppers told local affiliate ABC 11.
The attorney who facilitated the transaction acknowledged the sale was fraudulent, as their own client had also been deceived by an individual impersonating Peppers. The law firm worked to reverse the transaction and return the deed to Peppers, allowing the church's building plans to resume.
This incident echoes a similar scam targeting a landowner in nearby Apex, whose vacant lot was also put up for sale without their knowledge. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently issued a warning about an increase in criminals using identity theft to fraudulently sell vacant land, often targeting properties that are not regularly monitored.
Officials recommend landowners enroll in free property fraud alerts offered by their county's Register of Deeds office, monitor property records for unauthorized filings, exercise caution with vacant or infrequently visited properties, and report any suspicious activity to law enforcement immediately. While fraud alerts may not prevent fraudulent paperwork from being filed, they can flag suspicious activity quickly, allowing owners to contest it before the situation escalates.
Peppers emphasized the importance of vigilance, stating, "I think we need to keep raising the flag until people kind of have a sense that that’s what they need to do. Always check."