{"id":168566,"date":"2026-03-19T20:56:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T20:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/168566\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T20:56:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T20:56:35","slug":"da-katz-urges-queens-homeowners-to-protect-against-deed-theft-during-astoria-public-safety-meeting-qns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/168566\/","title":{"rendered":"DA Katz urges Queens homeowners to protect against deed theft during Astoria public safety meeting \u2013 QNS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"Queens\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz urged homeowners to protect against deed theft during a meeting in Astoria on Wednesday, March 18. <\/p>\n

Photo by Shane O\u2019Brien<\/p>\n

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz<\/a> urged Queens homeowners to protect themselves against deed theft and squatting during a visit to a public safety meeting hosted by the Astoria Homeowners, Tenants & Business Civic Association<\/a> on March 18.<\/p>\n

Katz, along with representatives from the 114th Precinct, spoke to local residents about public safety issues impacting the Astoria community for the monthly meeting, which took place at Pistilli Grand Manor at 45-02 Ditmars Blvd.<\/p>\n

During a lengthy address, Katz urged local homeowners to be vigilant against deed theft, a form of identity theft whereby a criminal illegally transfers ownership of a property to themselves or a third party \u2014 usually through forgery, fraud or deception.<\/p>\n

\"PhotoPhoto by Shane O\u2019Brien<\/p>\n

Katz advised all homeowners to sign their properties up to ACRIS, which provides New York City property owners with a notice whenever a deed or mortgage is taken out against their property.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to protect yourself against deed theft,\u201d Katz told Astoria residents Wednesday night. \u201cIf you sign your properties up on ACRIS, you will get notified when anybody takes a mortgage on your property, when anybody\u2019s trying to steal your property.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you inherited and someone\u2019s pretending to be your grandchild, you will get a notification. I\u2019m in it. Everyone I know that\u2019s in my world is in it,\u201d she continued.\n<\/p>\n

Katz also advised residents to do \u201cother things\u201d to protect their property, even if they don\u2019t live there. She advised visibly mowing the lawn or leaving the lights on occasionally to give the impression that someone is home.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake sure someone who is watching the property knows that it won\u2019t be so easy to steal,\u201d she said.
\n\"PhotoPhoto by Shane O\u2019Brien\n<\/p>\n

Katz also urged homeowners to protect themselves against squatters, referring to an individual who occupies a property without legal permission in the hope of obtaining tenant\u2019s rights after 30 days. Katz said the issue puts cops in a \u201cterrible position\u201d but added that her office has been \u201cgoing after\u201d squatters on trespassing charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t get to walk into a piece of property that you don\u2019t own and trespass and then say, \u2018I have 10 Shake Shack receipts that span two months, so I have a right to stay.\u2019 You don\u2019t get to do that. So we have arrested squatters, but more importantly, we\u2019ve gotten the property back,\u201d Katz said.<\/p>\n

During a short Q&A segment, residents raised concerns about a proliferation of unlicensed scooters in the neighborhood, which residents said creates a serious safety hazard for pedestrians and other road users.<\/p>\n

Katz noted that her office has been working with the NYPD to remove illegal and unlicensed scooters from the streets, noting that her office has removed more than 2,000 scooters in Queens County since the start of the initiative.<\/p>\n

In particular, Katz said, police can seize illegal scooters when they are parked outside shops and other public spaces.
\n\"\"Katz faced questions about illegal scooters in the area during the meeting. Photo by Shane O\u2019Brien<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz urged homeowners to protect against deed theft during a meeting in Astoria on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[69085,310,22100,69086,3064,9,24,63,69087,122,124,123,5434,69088,69089],"class_list":["post-168566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-astoria-homeowners","tag-daily-newsletter","tag-deed-theft","tag-illegal-scooters","tag-melinda-katz","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-pistilli-grand-manor","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-real-estate-newsletter","tag-squatting","tag-tenants-and-businesses-civic-association"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}