But the women insist they had bought it, fair and square. Cristo called his father, Martin Mendoza Sr., who had just slipped off to the grocery store, and insisted the house couldn’t have been purchased because he never tried to sell it. When he got back to the house, the women didn’t recognize the older man. This wasn’t the Martin Mendoza who sold them the home. The women told Cristo they had spoken with someone much younger, who had tattoos, a shaved head and a perpetual grimace. That description matches Martin Mendoza Jr, or just Junior, Cristo’s older half-brother, who has bounced between couches, the home on Fairway Avenue and prison his entire life.
The Mendozas were used to getting spam offer letters in the mail from gentrifiers chasing a quick buck. Many of their neighbors have been bought out and their homes converted to short-term rentals, but the Mendozas have remained; they don’t have any intention of leaving the neighborhood they’ve called home for more than 25 years. They waved the women off, chalking the strange interaction up to some clerical error or a fraudulent quick cash grab from the oldest Mendoza son, who, up until January, was in prison for assault.
Then in May, there was another knock on the door. Cristo remembers a man representing Duke Real Estate & Asset Management insisted his company had purchased the Mendoza home for $100,000, less than half of what it's worth. He was much less nice than the two women. He threatened to call the police and have the family forcibly removed from the property if they didn’t leave immediately. The police were never called, but the Mendozas, fearing the loss of their home, quickly phoned a lawyer, believing their wayward son had transferred the deed of their home in a case of fraud. They needed to move quickly, knowing the next knock on the door could be the constable bearing an eviction order to force the family out.
The Mendoza home, which Dallas County property records say has been owned by a company licensed as Konikoff Connection since May, is in the middle of ongoing litigation. The family, who were served with eviction papers in June, lost in court, and any day now, they will have to seek shelter at an extended stay hotel or scour the housing market, while strangers move into their beloved and thought-to-be forever home. It may sound improbable, but deed fraud is common, and worse, it’s exceptionally easy for those willing to participate. Or at least it was, until a set of local lawmakers decided to crack down on the crime, passing a bill this year in the Legislature’s second special session that fills the gaps in the legal system that allowed for families like the Mendozas to lose everything they had ever worked for, seemingly overnight.
Home Sweet Home
Martin Mendoza Sr. came to the United States from Mexico in 1996, chasing the white picket-fenced American dream. With a down payment less than today’s average monthly rent for the standard cookie-cutter two-bedroom apartment, he achieved it. Martin Sr., 60, and nearing retirement, works as a demolition project manager, and his wife works as a maid. Their house is small and aging, but it’s the Mendoza family’s sanctuary.“It was my dream, become a citizen, buy a house,” Martin Sr. said. “It was hard work.”
Cristo imagined one day serving dinner to his own children in the same olive green kitchen with paint chipping at the corners, where he ate every meal. He envisioned etching growth spurts on the same door frame where his mother chronicled his. He pictured his future children walking the same path he took to the elementary school around the corner. But now he can’t see any of that; all he can think about is the real possibility of homelessness.
“I hear a knock on the door, and my heart just starts racing,” Cristo said. “I answer the door, it's the church people. I want to yell at them, slam the door because I'm thinking it's a constable saying, ‘Hey, time to get out. Time to go.’ It's very difficult. The fact that I can't do anything just hurts.”
After the man from Duke Real Estate , another showed up , this time representing Konikoff Connection, came to their door a few weeks later in May, claiming to own the house. The man insisted the family leave, threatening to call the police while a carload of contractors waited outside, looking ready to work, Cristo said. But the police never came, and the man and his fleet of workers eventually left. By this time, the family had contacted a lawyer, and by late June, they had filed a lawsuit and an application for a temporary restraining order against Junior, Duke Real Estate & Asset Management and the newly listed owner of the home, Konikoff Connection.
The lawsuit claims Junior forged his father’s signature on a general warranty deed dated in December, transferring the property to himself. He then attempted to transfer the property to Duke Real Estate in May, which then transferred the property via another general warranty deed to Konikoff Connection. The family is seeking $250,000 in monetary relief, roughly the value of the home, but the Mendoza men say keeping their home and putting the legal battle behind them would be enough.
“[Lawyers] have to put some type of monetary value on that lawsuit,” Cristo said. “We know that my brother doesn't have any money. We don't want any money from him. We just want our house back.”
The family, with few options but to follow standard legal procedures, went to eviction court in July, hoping a judge would clearly see the fraud and return the home to the rightful owners. But Cristo says that within minutes, they lost their case, despite his name being spelled wrong in the initial eviction notice that falsely identified him as the primary tenant of the house.
“I thought, ‘The judge will see.’ Hearing the judge say that, ‘I rule for plaintiff,’ it's like everything turned upside down,” Cristo said. “I was angry. Do something, judge. What are you doing? All the years of my dad working, my mom, my sisters, all those years of them working. And for what? For someone just to take the house that easy? And then for it to be this difficult for us to get it back? It's not fair.”
The Mendozas are scraping together every spare dime for legal fees, which already total in the thousands. No criminal charges have been filed against Junior, and the family hasn’t heard from him since his last release from prison in January. Though they’ve tried reporting the fraud to the Dallas Police Department, they’ve been told it’s only a civil case, according to Cristo, and have been directed to the county sheriff’s office for future reporting. Fraud cases typically fall under the jurisdiction of the county sheriff, but the family has not contacted the department yet, as they admittedly have little faith in the authorities. They are also still learning the legal process and worry it may complicate ongoing litigation, and would prefer to retain their house without having to send Junior to jail.
“Either way, I think if the police investigated this and whoever is involved is convicted tomorrow, we still wouldn't get our house back,” said Cristo. “That's all we want. We don't want revenge. We just want our house back. So if we get our house back and no one is convicted, that's fine with us.”
The family is not sure where Junior is living, what he’s doing, or how he’s affording anything, though they suspect he’s somehow cashed a check with more than four zeros recently; otherwise, Cristo says, he would have been begging for money like he usually does.
“I did talk to him about that a while back,” Cristo said about his older brother. “He would reach out to us when he had no money. We haven't heard from him since January. So he has money. Otherwise, he would reach out to us.”
The Observer contacted the phone number last associated with Junior several times, but was unable to get a response. Duke Realty & Asset Management did not respond to our calls. A spokesperson for Konikoff Connection refused to comment.
The Mendoza family says its house was sold illegally by another family member forging a signature.
Nathan Hunsinger
Not All Hope Should Be Lost
Cristo and his family still struggle to believe what has happened to them, but it’s happening at an alarming rate in Dallas.. Dallas County Assistant District Attorney Phillip Clark told the Texas Tribune in August that 100 properties had already been involved in deed fraud this year. A bill filed by Dallas Sen. Royce West in the regular session, Senate Bill 648, would have changed procedures for deed transfers, requiring the presence of an attorney, a title agent or a similar service provider, while providing much stricter protections. But it was one of the 28 bills Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed at the end of this year’s regular session.“No one disputes that title theft and deed fraud are serious problems,” wrote the governor. “... Although Senate Bill No. 648 seeks to strengthen protections, it does so by imposing barriers that will burden low-income Texans, rural residents, and those handling family land without legal assistance.”
Abbott added the item to the end of the special session agenda, and with the support of Dallas Rep. Rafael Anchia, West filed another deed fraud bill. Senate Bill 16 makes real property theft and fraud felony crimes with added penalties when perpetrated against the elderly, disabled or a nonprofit organization. The law also requires the presentation of a photo identification to a county clerk before a deed can be transferred.
The bill passed both chambers unanimously and is awaiting Abbott’s signature.
“Today’s vote is a big win for every Texan who has lost their home to deed fraud,” Anchia said in a press release on August 26, the day of the final House vote. “We worked with law enforcement and victims to deliver the strongest protections in Texas history, making deed fraud a crime with real consequences and giving families the tools to defend what’s rightfully theirs - the roof over their heads.”
Assistant District Attorney Clark said at a press conference before the final House vote that the latest bill is part of an ongoing effort to tackle deed fraud. With supporting bills passed in other sessions, it provides prosecutors with the necessary tools to secure criminal verdicts while still streamlining the civil processes for a homeowner to prove fraud.
“Ultimately, if a case comes to me as a prosecutor in a criminal court and we secure a conviction against a defendant for deed fraud, that doesn't actually return the property title to the victim. Several of the elements the regulations in this bill help to address that,” Clark said. “...More importantly, it allows a victim to take that document to a civil court as evidence that there was fraud, and they're asking the court to review this evidence in these documents and nullify them or declare them void or fraudulent.”
Joining Rep. Anchia and Clark at the press conference was Robert Brown, the chairman of the board at First Christian Church in Lancaster. In 2019, the church was stolen by a known fraudster. It took two years to finally rectify the church title and return to services, and in May 2024, Clark secured a conviction for the perpetrator, who is now serving a 35-year sentence.
“I cannot tell you how much of a nightmare it was,” Brown said. “I appreciate all of [Anchia, West, and Clark], in getting this legislation passed, because it is dearly needed. This is a terrible, terrible crime that is committed.”
Vulnerable populations serve as the perfect targets for fraudsters. The church was lucky enough to receive pro-bono legal support, but most people at the center of deed fraud don’t have the resources to afford the several thousand dollars that years-long litigation can take.
“Robert [Brown] had a long road,” Anchia said. “But if he didn't have pro bono legal support, if he didn't have… a county clerk that was already astute on this issue, it would have been not two years, it might have been 10 years, or the statute of limitation may have run already. Because oftentimes, these folks just don't have the money to hire an attorney, don't have the time or the ability or the agency to figure out who to go to.”
Many times, like the Mendozas, an owner doesn’t know they’ve lost their property rights until well after the transfer has already happened. It might take several more years before a fraudster decides to sell, waiting out the statute of limitations, which will be extended from five to 10 years if SB 16 is signed into law.
Dallas County is acutely aware of the threat of deed fraud, and it runs a free alert system that notifies registered homeowners if their name or entity name is used in any real property filing, so long as the property is registered within the system. The Mendoza family wishes they had known about the service earlier, but they are disenchanted with the pursuit of criminal charges, having been told it's a civil matter by the police department so many times.
But Clark says even if he can’t personally expedite the return of a home, pursuing criminal charges, especially under the new law, will be well worth it.
“[They] are not without hope,” Clark told Observer. “It is a civil case, but it is also a crime. … These cases have a solution in a civil court, but all of that is true for many other crimes. The new law will make it absolutely abundantly clear ... to help law enforcement investigators understand the criminal nature of this, despite the fact that it's signatures and paper, and despite the fact that there's a lawsuit that could be filed. This is a crime.”
A Broken Home
The Mendoza household is a warm one. Every inch is covered with memories of the last three decades. Pictures of grandchildren and every high school graduation and collages of pets that have passed away will leave rectangular light spots on the walls if the family is forced to pack up their things and go. For now, crosses hanging on the wall will echo Mrs. Mendoza's tearful late-night prayers, pleading with the higher powers for the end of this all. Martin Sr. would like to forgive his son one day and even welcome him back into the home that he believes Junior stole. Cristo has less room left in his heart for his troubled brother.
“I wouldn't let him here,” said Cristo. “I guess [my dad] wants to talk to him, but I just don't. I see what he did to [my dad] and to my mom, and to my sister. I don't want him here. It's upsetting to me because I feel their pain, and I can't do anything.”
After working their entire lives, Martin Sr. and his wife were planning on slowing down soon and gearing up for eventual retirement. But those dreams are slashed. Now the family’s only focus is on paying their lawyer and continuing to defend their home. Right now, there is no backup plan, and they’ll wait until a constable comes to forcibly evict them, which could happen any day.
“When we first got our lawyer, we figured, ‘Oh, a few months, we’ll be all right,” said Cristo. “But we’re just waiting for that. It's like a noose around our necks. We're just waiting. Just waiting for it to be over.”
More than anything, Cristo and his family worry that even if they get their house back, what’s to stop this from happening again, or what’s to stop it from happening to another person?
“The only reason why I would go to the police and why I try to reach out to new people is that I don't want this to happen to anyone else,” he said. “Especially if my brother is doing this, and I don't want him to do it again to anyone else.”
