Texas couple find strangers building on their land after alleged identity fraud; court dismisses notary claims

Discovering that someone is building a house on land you still own can turn a property dispute into a complicated legal battle, particularly when the sale appears to have been completed using someone else's identity. In Texas, a couple found themselves in this situation after an individual allegedly impersonated them to transfer their vacant property to a company.

The dispute eventually reached the Texas Fourth Court of Appeals, which considered whether a Colorado notary could be sued in Texas over his role in the disputed deed.In an opinion delivered on November 10, 2026, the appeals court reversed a lower court's decision allowing claims against notary Skipton S Reynolds to proceed. The court ruled that Texas did not have personal jurisdiction over him because the notarial services at the centre of the negligence allegations had been performed in Colorado.

The decision is available in Skipton S Reynolds v.