HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Hawaii property owners have no way to prevent people from stealing their homes or land through forged deeds, according to a Hawaii News Now investigation into title theft.
The state Bureau of Conveyances processes about 250,000 documents annually and does not verify any document’s validity before recording it.
“If they’re being asked to stop and examine each one of them, it’s going to slow the system down. So that would affect the entire industry,” said Andrew Laurence, state Land Department communications director…