MONTREAL - Montreal police have issued a Canada-wide warrant for an alleged fraudster police claim ran an elaborate scam meant to obtain huge mortgages from properties he didn't own.

Police say Hazem Bouattour forged the property deeds of five homes, three of which were in Westmount.

Bouattar allegedly obtained access to the titles through the public record, and then filed forgeries with Quebec's property registrar.

"He went to a lawyer's office and made the purchase legal. After that, the man tried to obtain mortgages for the houses," said Montreal police Const. Daniel Lacoursiere.

Surprise home appraisal

Westmount resident Viviane Gauthier-Jacquet bought her house mortgage-free seven years ago, and received a surprise visit from a home appraiser last year.

The appraiser was working for a bank about to authorize a $500,000 mortgage from someone claiming to have bought her house – except she never sold it.

"He says, ‘I'm here to evaluate your house.' I said to him, ‘You must be mistaken, why would you want to evaluate my house?" she said.

Gauthier-Jacquet immediately hired a lawyer to stop the transaction, but Bouattar allegedly obtained hundreds of thousands of dollars on two other properties, while two more transactions fell through.

A sharp-eyed clerk at the city of Westmount also noticed something was wrong when it was time to send the so-called ‘welcome tax' bill to several houses bought by Bouattour.

Warrant issued

Within days, police actively began seeking Bouattour, whose last known address was a modest apartment on St. Hubert St.

"When we came to arrest him he had fled, so that's why there's a Canada-wide warrant emitted for this gentleman," said Lacoursiere.

Financial institutions lost money, not the homeowners; though victims say they felt some insecurity that someone was able to attempt to steal their property so easily.

"These people knew where we were coming from, where we got married – everything was totally available to them," said Gauthier-Jacquet. "You can't imagine that you're going to be kicked of your own house."

Negligence claims

Homeowners can easily be found on the city of Montreal's assessment roll, which provides enough information to search a property's title history from the registrar's office or on the Internet.

"This is the history of your building. As a notary, I need to search. I need to read all the transfer deeds. I need to see if there's still a mortgage," said notary David Dolan.

The alleged suspect didn't use a notary for his transactions, instead using a lawyer.

That lawyer is not the target of the police investigation, though the five victims have filed professional negligence claims with the Quebec Bar Association, which is now investigating.