The New York City Register’s office recently encountered an embarrassing incident where fake property deeds were filed claiming that Ivanka Trump and Hillary Clinton were collaborating on a $150 million real estate transaction. These fraudulent documents, lacking essential notarization and containing absurd assertions about the purchase of air and subterranean rights to prestigious properties like the University Club and Central Park Tower’s duplex condo, were only flagged and removed after The New York Post intervened.
This incident is particularly alarming given the significant oversight lapse despite the city’s prior investigations into thousands of fraudulent deeds over the past decade. The fraudulent filing, which erroneously claimed Ivanka Trump, Hillary Clinton, and a fictitious individual named “Louis Reyes” were involved in the transaction, was processed and stamped as “approved” by city clerks before being discovered.
Real estate experts and critics have lambasted the oversight, emphasizing that the lack of notarization alone should have raised immediate red flags. Adelaide Polsinelli, a real estate broker at Compass who first noticed the fake filing, expressed concern over how easily manipulated such critical documents could be.
City officials acknowledged the error, with Ryan Lavis from the Department of Finance confirming that the deed was filed erroneously and subsequently removed after a review. The incident highlights vulnerabilities in the city’s deed registration process and raises questions about the safeguards in place to prevent such fraud in the future.
