Alleged Vacant Home Hijacker Asserts Adverse Possession To Claim Ownership Of Abandoned Houses; Bogus Docs Recorded To Cloud Property Titles: Cops

In Las Vegas, Nevada, KLAS-TV Channel 8 reports:

• Victims say Eric Alpert never met a house he didn't like. The state says Eric Alpert never met a house he couldn't steal. Almost. In the first day of a multi-part preliminary hearing, Eric Alpert defended himself from multiple felony counts of theft, burglary, forgery and filing false records. Investigators believe Alpert identified vacant homes going into foreclosure and then broke in, changed the locks and rented them out.

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• Alpert's defense team believes a law called adverse possession allows people to seize vacant homes. Typically, that law allows for ownership if the person lived continually in the abandoned property for five years -- paying bills and upkeep the entire time.(1)

• Instead, the state says Alpert simply put up homemade notices claiming adverse possession. Then after two weeks time, the out-of-area or out-of-state owners would not respond and Alpert would take control of the property and rent it out. He would also file liens of abandonment, trying to "cloud the title" and make it appear as if he had a true financial interest in the property.

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• Alpert's defense tried to make the point that foreclosures become abandoned property and the homeowners essentially gave up on them.

For the story, see I-Team: Alleged Squatter Sees Day in Court.

(1) According to an October 3, 2009 story in the Las Vegas Review Journal (see Ex-agent arrested for renting homes he didn't own (Victims lured by cheap rent soon evicted)):

• Alpert appears to file an action to quiet title on properties, and if the owner does not appear to contest the action, he receives title to the property, the lawyer said. He claimed at that time to be legally taking homes by "adverse possession" under Nevada law, but the attorney general's affidavit notes that [Nevada Revised Statutes] NRS 11.150 specifically states that "requirements for adverse possession is occupation continuously for five years" and payment of taxes, which Alpert did not do.