Victor Quimis, 40, became the first person convicted under New York's criminal deed theft law after forging the signature of Renuka Bherwani, an elderly Queens widow receiving hospice care, to transfer ownership of her Kew Gardens Hills home. Quimis and an accomplice first transferred the property to themselves, then to a corporation Quimis controlled. He obtained a $552,500 mortgage against the property and pocketed more than $300,000 after paying off existing debts. Bherwani's family discovered the theft only after receiving a city notice congratulating Quimis on becoming the home's new owner.
Researchers at New York University's Furman Center found that 34.5% of transfers from individual homeowners to companies in 2025 involved a mismatch between the seller on the new deed and the buyer on the previous deed, the highest share in at least a decade. The share has climbed from 26.8% in 2021. An additional 1.4% of 2025 transfers involved properties with no previous deed on record. While these discrepancies don't necessarily indicate fraud, researchers say they can help identify properties warranting closer scrutiny.
The Furman Center identified approximately 45,000 homes worth a combined $34.7 billion with at least one indicator of vulnerability to title-related problems. The latest report identified 2,300 properties at particularly high risk because at least one listed owner is deceased and the property has no recorded deed or one dating back more than 30 years. Nearly 13% of these high-risk properties owed more than $500 in property taxes, compared with fewer than 2% of all individually owned one- to three-family homes. These properties were nearly seven times as likely to have appeared on the city's 2025 tax lien sale list.
Queens accounted for more than half of the city's high-risk properties. The Bronx had the highest prevalence relative to its housing stock. Jamaica and Hollis in Queens recorded the greatest number of transfers with mismatched ownership records between 2015 and 2025, followed by Queens Village. Neighborhoods with the greatest numbers of high-risk properties tended to have larger shares of Black, Asian, and foreign-born residents than the city overall.
In April, Mayor Zohran Mamdani established the Mayor's Office of Deed Theft Prevention to coordinate investigations and protections for vulnerable homeowners. The Furman Center developed a restricted mapping tool to help government agencies, law enforcement, and legal services providers identify properties that may need intervention. Researchers say more detailed property records, targeted legal assistance, and estate planning could help protect homeowners before ownership disputes or fraudulent transactions put their homes at risk.