Upstate NY Man Sells Elderly Parents Home Out From Under Them

In New Windsor, New York, the Times Herald-Record reports:

• It took just five months for Paul Tartaglia Jr. to be arrested, spill his guts to police and shuffle off to state prison for selling his parents' house out from beneath them. Now comes the hard part for Paul Tartaglia Sr. and his wife, Angela: getting back their house.

• When their son took a plea-bargain in September, he pleaded guilty to grand larceny, which covered the money from the bogus home sale and money he took from a former girlfriend who bore him a son. Between all his victims, Tartaglia's on the hook for $338,000. But Tartaglia's plea didn't provide an explanation for how he stole the money. He didn't explain the sale of his parents' house.

• That leaves Paul and Angela Tartaglia mired in a civil suit with, among others, their son, a mortgage company, a bank, a title insurance company and a Bronx man who somehow received legal authority — called power of attorney — to act on behalf of the Tartaglias and sell the house on a placid block in New Windsor, where they've lived for nearly 40 years.

• Paul Tartaglia Sr. says he found out about the sale by accident earlier this year, when he went to Town Hall to pay a water bill and discovered it had already been paid by a complete stranger. The Tartagalias also found out that someone had taken out a new mortgage on their house.

For more, see House-selling scam leaves parents in bind.

For story update, see Fake legal form tangles case of home-sale scam (Times Herald-Record - 11-24-07).

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