SovCit home purchase attempt
Here is my run-in with a SovCit. adjacent person. This happened about many years ago. I work at a county Assessor's office, in the ownership/exemptions division. We deal with ownership issues related to deeds, transfers of ownership and any exemptions available. Most transfers of ownership stem from some sort of deed, either a grant deed, quitclaim deed or related document. The key phrase her is "deed" which will be relevant to my story.
I was working the front counter fielding questions from the public who come into our office in person, which is a fairly common occurrence. One day I had a young gentleman enter the office and present proof that he took ownership of a property and would like to have it acknowledged. He also had a copy of Black's Law Dictionary with him. Now, generally, deeds and other legal documents which hold title are recorded documents which are notarized and recorded with the Clerk/Recorder (a separate office as ours). What this man had was a bill of sale instead of a deed. That was my first clue that something was off. Granted, you can change ownership without a deed, such as a court order (think of a divorce settlement), probate documents or more commonly an Affidavit of Death of Trustee or Cotenant, Inter-spousal Transfer, etc. So, a bill of sale, while not common could be a starting point to ownership change.
So, I question the man about the bill of sale. He claims that the owner of the house sold the property to him and he wanted to recognize the change in ownership. So, I look at the bill of sale. I notice that the bill of sale is only initialed by the buyer (who was in the office) and not the seller as well. I question the buyer about this fact, and he says "The buyer listed the home on the market. This signals his intent and willingness to sell the house. I want the house so therefore both parties are in agreement" etc.
I tell the man, that it takes more than an agreement to sell something, that money (or full cash value) needs to change hands for a "sale" and I kid you not, he says that the US government will provide him the funds needed to buy the house. Specifically, he says Secretary of State John Kerry (this was many years ago) will foot the bill. Now I'm curious! "How do you mean?" I ask him. He pulls out a passport and notes the section of the passport that says that the US govt/Sec of state will provide financial assistance if needed. I look at the passage and say "That means if you are overseas and go to a US Consulate, they will give you a quarter for a phone call, not buy a house for you" - I might also add, that the house in question was in one of our more expensive areas of the county, million plus home values.
I consult with a supervisor about the issue, and we eventually decide to point him towards the County Sherriff's office, specifically the Real Estate Fraud division. I also put a call to the broker listing the house and they were familiar with the weird dude who walked through the property. I was concerned that this dude would forge the sellers name and maybe kill the seller - all sorts of ideas were in my head after this visit.
While I don't think this is exactly SovCit related, I feel like this dude was in jail for a bit and had nothing to do with his time but read the Black's Law book during his free time. Similar to SovCits who believe they have found some magic "loophole" for legal dealings.
I've also have come across deeds made by real SovCits, which are hilarious, as deeds need specific mailing addresses and other identifying information, and these deeds would list a city as "near said city's name" etc. And the signatures would always be weird, thumb prints and all the SovCit's typical BS.