CADILLAC — The Election Day ransomware attack on the Wexford County government continues to impact business, especially the real estate market, as the county struggles to get things back to normal.
County officials have been dealing with workarounds since Nov. 5 when the attack shut their servers down, impacting email, phones and some county services. Officials said the ransomware attack was far worse than they first thought.
Associate real estate broker Greg Bosscher said not having access to records like titles and deeds means they haven’t been able to close deals.
“We’re really starting to see is this is affecting families,” said Bosscher of Five Star Real Estate. “Especially around the holidays. They we’re hoping to close the transaction, get in before Christmas, and it’s just sitting in limbo.”
“We can start deals, and we’re moving things forward that way, but you cannot close transactions.”
Bosscher explained that with a financed offer, the lender requires title insurance. Even if the underwriters for the title insurance signed off on the property before the ransomware attack, it’s now too late.
“We’ve had some issues where we have title insurance just before the county closed, but it has to be current. It has to be within 20 days of closing or the underwriter won’t guarantee it.”
Bosscher said that with most buyers selling their old home, these issues spread to other markets outside of Wexford County as well.
“Sometimes we will have transactions that are contingent. Their purchase is contingent on the sale of their home. So the the Wexford County home that can’t close may affect a home in Grand Rapids or a home in another state,” said Bosscher.
Real estate agents like Bosscher understand that this problem isn’t the County’s fault, but they are looking for more transparency. County Administrator Joe Porterfield told us he understands their frustration and wishes he had more answers.
“It’s a terrible burden on our taxpayers,” said Porterfield. “The commissioners have people working diligently trying to get these [servers] up as soon as we can.”
Porterfield couldn’t give a timeframe for that. He did say the suspected group behind the attack is called Embargo.
“I know they’re a ransomware entity. What I understand is primarily they go after health care companies, but beyond that I don’t know much about them, and there’s not much that I can find about them,” said Porterfield.
The County did not have an estimate of the cost caused by the attack but said it would be significant.