Man jailed again in home scam

A year in jail didn't deter a West Palm Beach man bent on renting homes he doesn't own. Citing an obscure Florida law pertaining to abandoned and vacant property, Carl Heflin, 52, tried to take homes via adverse possession and then rent them to unwitting tenants, Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies said.

He was arrested the first time in relation to the practice in 2009. After his July release from jail, he filed adverse possession papers on four homes, renting one on Tallahassee Drive and taking $2,500 from a tenant for a three-year lease.

The former West Palm Beach police officer was arrested last week on charges of burglary, scheming to defraud and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He is jailed with bail set at $100,000.

His daughter, Carli, 17, was charged with burglary for allegedly breaking windows to get into empty homes so he could change locks, deputies said.

Adverse possession lets someone file a claim of ownership on a property, and try to gain permanent ownership after possessing it for seven years, while paying taxes and caring for the property.

It was created hundreds of years ago when hand-scrawled property records were lost or damaged. Allowing for adverse possession kept land productive when ownership was unclear, or an owner died with no heirs. More recently, it's been used in small property line disputes. Today, property records are tangled in the market meltdown.

"This is the ideal opportunity for adverse possession because titles are clouded," said Kama Monroe, senior attorney for the Florida Department of Revenue.

In the Tallahassee Drive home case, the property appraiser's office said Franklyn Cunningham of New Jersey owns it. Relatives lived there until August 2009 when a fire made it unlivable. Foreclosure papers were filed in November. Heflin filed adverse possession documents on it after his release from jail.