{"id":40679,"date":"2025-03-19T20:00:15","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T00:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldlatinstar.com\/wls\/?p=40679"},"modified":"2025-03-19T20:00:15","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T00:00:15","slug":"squatters-took-over-a-phoenix-home-and-sold-it-for-200k-without-the-owners-knowing-feels-so-surreal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/worldlatinstar.com\/wls\/squatters-took-over-a-phoenix-home-and-sold-it-for-200k-without-the-owners-knowing-feels-so-surreal\/","title":{"rendered":"Squatters took over a Phoenix home and sold it for $200K without the owners knowing: \u2018Feels so surreal\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Most people worry about their bike or car being stolen \u2014 not their home.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s exactly what happened to D\u2019Andrea Turner when squatters took over her Phoenix home and sold it without her knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels so surreal,\u201d Turner shared in an interview with ABC 15 Arizona. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m in the Twilight Zone. Really, I didn\u2019t even think something like this could happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it did. After Turner\u2019s ex-husband, Keith \u2014 a long-haul trucker \u2014 left the house unattended for a period of time, two strangers, Aaron Polmanteer and Lledera Hollen, forced their way in.<\/p>\n

Once inside, they found personal documents belonging to the Turners, forged new ones, and assumed their identities.<\/p>\n

\u201cSquatters stole my house,\u201d Turner said, still in disbelief. \u201cThey actually moved in, posed as me, and sold my house.\u201d<\/p>\n

With fraudulent paperwork in hand, Polmanteer and Hollen successfully listed and sold the home to real estate investors for $200,000 \u2014 all without the Turners knowing.<\/p>\n

They might have gotten away with it too, but they ran into trouble when they tried to cash checks written out in the Turners\u2019 names.<\/p>\n

Polmanteer and Hollen now await trial, and Turner\u2019s home is back in the right hands. But the story highlights a growing trend of criminals selling property without the homeowners knowing about it. Here\u2019s how to guard yourself against this disturbing crime.<\/p>\n

Your keys give you physical access to your home, but your title secures your legal right to it. That right is recorded on a deed, the legal document that proves who holds ownership.<\/p>\n

In a legitimate real estate transaction, the title transfer is carefully overseen by a real estate agent, title company, and notary to ensure everything is properly documented.<\/p>\n

But fraudsters know how to manipulate the system, sometimes slipping through these safeguards undetected.<\/p>\n

Just ask Turner. By forging documents and impersonating her and her ex-husband, Polmanteer and Hollen were able to fool a title company and notary.<\/p>\n

By the time Turner realized what had happened, the property had already changed hands on paper.<\/p>\n

When Turner saw the forged documents, she was stunned. \u201cThat is not my name, and that\u2019s not my signature,\u201d she said in an interview with ABC 15 Arizona. \u201cHow does this happen? At what point did someone not do their job?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most people worry about their bike or car being stolen \u2014 not their home. But that\u2019s exactly what happened to D\u2019Andrea Turner when squatters took over her Phoenix home and sold it without her knowledge. \u201cIt feels so surreal,\u201d Turner shared in an interview with ABC 15 Arizona. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m in the Twilight…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40676,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[251,89],"class_list":["post-40679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wls-news","tag-251","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/worldlatinstar.com\/wls\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/news.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/worldlatinstar.com\/wls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/worldlatinstar.com\/wls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/worldlatinstar.com\/wls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/worldlatinstar.com\/wls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/worldlatinstar.com\/wls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/worldlatinstar.com\/wls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40680,"href":"http:\/\/worldlatinstar.com\/wls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40679\/revisions\/40680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/worldlatinstar.com\/wls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/worldlatinstar.com\/wls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/worldlatinstar.com\/wls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/worldlatinstar.com\/wls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}