Cheating Heart Closing

I first heard this story at a closing, as told by the escrow officer. “A husband and wife were selling their house. It was a quick sale to an out of town buyer. The next week, when the new owners’ moving truck pulled up, they found the wife still living in the house, unaware of any sale. It turned out the woman who signed her name at the title company was in fact her husband’s new girlfriend who had impersonated his wife. They collected the sales proceeds to run off to Mexico. And the sale happened in this closing room.”

“It turned out the woman who signed her name at the title company was in fact her husband’s new girlfriend.”

The Urban Legend of Title Companies

Over the years I heard the same story several times at closings, always with the supposed real estate crime of passion having taken place at the title company the closing was happening. Like a honky tonk jukebox cheating song, the story is great. It is relatable and wraps up in less than three minutes.

When I was hearing this story in the early 2000’s, it was always told in a classic urban legend framework. It was always said to have happened about 10 years ago, to someone the story teller knew but who no longer worked at the title company. And sometimes there was an alternate ending--instead of completing the sale when the escrow officer asks for the woman’s driver’s license to notarize the sale documents, the woman and her “husband” go out to her car to retrieve the license and don’t return.

Digging into the Details

So, is there any truth to this story? It seems plausible enough, but I couldn’t find anything online, so I started asking around. I had heard the story most often attributed to the Chicago Title Westbank location, so I called Dana Bateman, who worked at that location for years. She remembered the story and said it did happen there, to another closer, although she couldn’t recall exactly when or who the closer was. She confirmed that the people went to the car for identification and drove off without finishing the sale.

Was it real? Was it all an urban legend? If you have any other versions of this story, or have some way to corroborate it, please let me know.