Deed-fraud law a family affair
Scam artists stole Jennifer Merin’s family legacy.
Proposed legislation named in honor of her family takes it back.
The Merin-Hershman Act would reform the city’s deed-registration process and protect homeowners from deed theft.
Merin, 73, an Upper West Side resident, knows from personal heartache.
An ex-con stole her family’s empty, three-bedroom Tudor in Queens in 2014 by filing a phony deed with the city and moving in.
The scam tarnished the memories of Merin’s Russian and Ukranian grandparents, who moved into the row house on 141st Avenue in 1931 and raised her mom and her mom’s two siblings there.
Merin’s lengthy legal and bureaucratic struggle — it took nearly a year to get the house back in her name — drove her to become an activist on the issue.
Darrell Beatty, 52, spent eight months in jail for the fraud.
“Setting things right caused me great economic hardship,” Merin told The Post. “I don’t want anyone else to experience what I went through.”
“My family legacy was stolen from me,” Merin said. “Everything [they] worked for was wiped out. It feels right that my family should be honored in some way.”
City Council Member Helen Rosenthal, who introduced the legislation Thursday with council colleague Julissa Ferreras-Copeland, said the case is a “cautionary tale for anyone who owns property.”
The bill would codify Department of Finance reforms by immediately notifying property owners when deeds or mortgages are filed for their property.
“We will make it part of the law that the city must register every deed and sign people up for this mechanism . . . they will receive notification by e-mail or text message when any document affecting the ownership interest is newly recorded,” Rosenthal said.
The lawmakers hope to get the bill passed “before the end of the year.”