California City land scams: what lot owners and buyers should know

01Is California City land a scam?

The land is real. Every lot is a parcel in Kern County’s records, with its own number, an assessor’s map and a tax bill.² The scams in California City’s past were in how the land was sold. Nat Mendelsohn’s company sold lots here to more than 73,000 people, and the Silver Saddle “landbank” of the 2010s took in more than 2,000 investors³ before the state brought the case in which a court appointed a receiver.⁴ The history of the land sales and the FTC’s case and the story of Silver Saddle tell both with their sources.

This page is about what is aimed at owners and buyers now: people selling lots they do not own, and people offering to recover money already lost. Buying a lot is not a scam in itself, but whether a particular lot is worth having depends on things the county’s record does not show, which what to check before buying a lot sets out.

02Can someone sell my lot without me?

On 30 December 2025 the California Department of Real Estate warned agents about people posing as the owners of vacant land and asking agents to sell property they do not own. Typically, it said, an impostor uses fake identification to sell vacant land whose owner is elderly, has died, or lives far away.¹ It had issued the same warning in July 2023, when it said police and district attorneys around the state were reporting a sharp increase in these cases.⁵

California City fits the description unusually well. The city’s own 2010 inventory counted 36,007 vacant residential parcels,⁶ and Nat Mendelsohn’s company alone sold land here to more than 73,000 people, through sales offices around the world.³

According to the DRE, the impostor typically:

• searches public records for land with no mortgage or other lien on it, and for its owner;
• asks an agent to list it below market value, to draw quick interest;
• asks for no “For Sale” sign on the property;
• prefers a cash buyer, accepts an offer quickly and wants a quick closing;
• will not meet in person, keeps to email, text and phone, and usually refuses video calls;
• will not attend the signing, saying they are out of the state or the country;
• insists on their own notary, who supplies falsified documents to the title company or closing attorney;
• and wants the proceeds wired to them.

Any one of these can be innocent, the DRE says; several together are the warning. And the scheme is usually discovered only when the transfer is recorded with the county recorder¹, that is, once the sale has closed.

03How can I protect my lot?

The DRE’s advice is written for agents, but two of its checks run through the owner: agents are told to ask the seller for a recent tax bill, which usually shows the legitimate owner’s name, and to mail a copy of the listing to the owner’s address of record, which alerts a real owner who did not ask for it.¹ Both depend on the county having a current address for you.

• Keep your mailing address current with the county. The Kern County Assessor takes changes of mailing address on a form.⁷ Under a state law passed in 2025, every county must set up a program by 1 January 2027 that mails a notice within 30 days of the recording of a deed, quitclaim deed, mortgage or deed of trust. The notice goes to whoever is named as signing it, at the tax-bill mailing address held before the recording⁸, so if someone forges your signature on a deed, the notice comes to you, provided that address is yours. When this page was checked, the DRE’s list of counties already running such alerts did not include Kern.⁹
• Check the record yourself. The DRE tells owners to check the title to their property periodically, as they would a credit report, and to act at once on anything wrong.¹⁰ The Kern County Recorder’s online index can be searched by grantor, the party giving up the property,¹¹ so a search on your own name should turn up nothing you did not sign.
• Know your parcel number. It is the way into the county’s record and map; finding your parcel explains where it is printed.

04Buying a lot: how do I avoid a fake seller?

A buyer is the scheme’s other victim: the money goes to someone who never owned the land. The pattern above is the one to watch for from the buyer’s side too, above all a seller who cannot be met, has their own notary and wants the money wired.¹ The DRE tells consumers never to pay cash, or wire it to anyone, in a real estate transaction, and to use only licensed professionals, whose licences can be checked on its site.¹⁰

The county’s online property search does not show owners’ names,² so it cannot confirm a seller on its own.

05Is a Silver Saddle recovery offer real?

The Silver Saddle case, in which more than 2,000 investors bought shares in a “landbank” of desert near the city,³ is told in the history of California City. What matters here is where it now stands, because people who have already lost money are exactly who recovery scams go after.

The court-appointed receiver mailed the final distribution cheques on 31 July 2026, each for 16.8 per cent of the investor’s approved claim. A cheque must be cashed within 90 days of mailing or it is cancelled; after a cancellation, an approved claimant has 45 days to give the receiver’s office a current address for a replacement, or loses the right to a distribution.⁴ Ninety days from 31 July runs to 29 October 2026.

The receiver’s page describes every step of the claims process: letters by post, challenges by letter or email to its office, cheques by post, changes of address by email to its office. Nothing in that process, as the receiver describes it, involves paying anyone.⁴

The Federal Trade Commission describes the scam that follows a loss like this one. Scammers buy lists of people who have already been defrauded, then get in touch by phone, email, text, social media or letter, sometimes claiming to be from a government agency, a law firm or a consumer group, and offer to get the money back. First, though, they need a “retainer fee”, a “processing fee” or your bank details. Government agencies and legitimate organisations, the FTC says, never ask for money to help you get a refund.¹²

06Where do I report a land scam?

• A sale or deed you did not authorise: local law enforcement: the police, the sheriff or the district attorney’s office.¹
• A licensed agent or broker involved: a complaint to the Department of Real Estate.¹⁴
• A recovery offer or other scam: the Federal Trade Commission.¹³