New York City Mayor Mamtani announced on the 24th the establishment of a new “Office of Deed Theft Prevention” to combat the growing issue of deed theft in neighborhoods like Brooklyn and Queens.
Deed theft typically involves unscrupulous investors illegally obtaining ownership of properties through fraud, forged documents, family inheritance disputes, or even harassing elderly homeowners, and then selling them at a high price for profit. These cases are particularly concentrated in central Brooklyn and southeast Queens, where soaring property prices have made older homes a target for speculators.
Between 2014 and 2023, the city and state received approximately 3,500 complaints of deed theft, with an additional 517 related complaints added in just one year in 2025, primarily in Brooklyn and Queens.
Mayor Mamtani emphasized, “Deed theft not only disproportionately deprives African American and minority New Yorkers of housing, but also robs them of the stability that housing brings. The era of the city government standing idly by is over.”
According to city officials, the newly established Office of Deed Theft Prevention will be located within the New York City Department of Finance and will coordinate enforcement efforts across housing, human rights, and finance departments.
The office will have the authority to investigate fraud allegations, intervene and halt eviction processes during investigations to prevent genuine homeowners from being forced out of their homes prematurely. Additionally, it will focus on educating high-risk homeowner groups, such as the elderly, and providing financial assistance to establish clear property inheritance chains to prevent exploitation by malicious individuals due to unclear inheritance documents.
Mamtani has appointed senior real estate attorney Peter White as the inaugural director. White previously worked at the nonprofit organization Access Justice Brooklyn, where he assisted homeowners facing foreclosures, property fraud, and deed theft in legal battles.
In recent years, the state legislature has also begun enhancing legislation, including increasing penalties for deed theft, allowing local prosecutors to flag suspicious property transactions, and restricting speculators from forcing a sale of properties after purchasing minority ownership stakes.
State Attorney General Janet Lohia called on the state legislature to further establish “cease and desist zones” in central Brooklyn to prohibit real estate investors from actively harassing homeowners and pressuring them to sell, as well as establish the “right to counsel” in redemption cases to protect vulnerable homeowners.
She stated, “Deed theft is never an isolated incident; it is closely related to predatory practices like illegal evictions and abusive partition sales. Too many families have lost homes passed down through generations as a result.”
New York City Councilor Chi Ossé stated that the establishment of the new office sends a clear message to speculators: “New York will no longer tolerate anyone stealing someone else’s home through document games or coercion.”