What happened
Everything below is drawn from public records recorded with the Island County Auditor and other official sources. Framing is deliberately factual: the deeds were recorded but are invalid, and the Sheriff’s investigation is ongoing.
The scheme in plain language
Between February 24 and May 2, 2025, three people each recorded a quitclaim deed with the Island County Auditor. In each deed the filer lists themselves as both the “grantor” (the person giving the property) and the “grantee” (the person receiving it), and claims to be the modern “successor in interest” to a United States Land Patent issued in the 1800s. Using misread historical case law, they assert that this makes them the true owners of large blocks of Whidbey Island land — and that ordinary recorded ownership (yours and mine) is somehow inferior.
This is a well-known “sovereign citizen / land patent” theory. It has no legal validity: you cannot receive title from someone who never owned the land. As the Island County Auditor’s office put it, recording a document “does not make it legal or binding, simply public and historical.”
The three deeds
| Filer | Deed # | Recorded | Land claimed | County flag |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Douglas Steven Shroyer | 4582708 | 02/27/2025 | 577.70 ac — Secs 29, 32, 33, T30N R3E | INVALID DEED |
| Irene Ingalls | 4583923 | 04/01/2025 | 120 ac — Secs 32, 33, T30N R3E | INVALID DEED |
| Elizabeth A. Schermer | 4583924 | 04/01/2025 | 171.30 ac — Sec 4 & Lot 1 of Section 5, T29N R3E | INVALID DEED |
Each deed was accompanied by supporting “notices” and “declarations,” and all were notarized by the same Seattle notary, John S. Hicks (WA commission #194569, a real and active notary). See the actual images on The Filings and the people involved on Named Individuals.
Why our neighborhood is affected
The Schermer deed (#4583924) describes “Lot 1 of Section 5” and parts of Section 4, Township 29 North, Range 3 East — the survey section that contains the Katya Lane parcels, the Neis property, and the Wayne property. The Shroyer and Ingalls deeds target the adjoining Township 30 North sections to the north.
Even though these deeds are invalid, they are now part of the public record. When a title company runs a search, it sees a competing recorded claim and — to protect itself — will often decline to insure a sale or refinance until the cloud is formally removed. That is the real, present harm to owners in the affected area.
Not three lone actors — a commercial operation
Public Secretary of State records show the filings trace back to a single Washington company. Gold Dust Title Company, LLC was formed on March 20, 2025 — in the middle of the filing window — with sole governor Douglas “Steven” Shroyer (the same person who recorded the first quitclaim as “Douglas Steven Shroyer”). It lists a Langley, WA principal office (220 2nd St #101-42) and a Seattle mailing address (8406 6th Ave NW, the address on two of the deeds). Its website, golddusttitle.com, openly markets and sells the “land patent” model as “title company” services — Land Patent Research, quitclaim-deed preparation, County Auditor Legal Filings, an “in-house notary,” and a “title insurance bypass” — the exact sequence carried out in the three recorded filings. Its registered agent is Ballard Law Group, whose partner John Scott Hicks shares the name of the notary (#194569) on all three deeds. See the Gold Dust Title Company and Ballard Law Group pages.
Two Langley properties in this story
Two Langley (South Whidbey) addresses appear in the public records this matter turned up:
- 220 2nd St #101-42, Langley — the principal office of Gold Dust Title Company, LLC (the “#101-42” suffix indicates a mailbox/suite). It is the company’s Whidbey business address; see the Gold Dust Title Company page.
- 4896 Lucy Ln, Langley — a home owned by neighbor Kathy Kundert in Section 4 (the section the Schermer deed claims). Ms. Kundert is actively trying to sell, and the recorded cloud is blocking the transaction — a concrete example of the harm. See her property summary.
The “land patent” scheme, explained
These filings follow a well-known, widely-debunked playbook sometimes called the “land patent” or “American State National” theory, promoted online within the broader sovereign-citizen movement. The pitch goes like this: a parcel’s original 1800s U.S. Land Patent is supposedly the “highest” or “allodial” form of title, and a person can simply declare themselves the modern “successor in interest” to that historical patent and “reclaim” the land — overriding everyone’s ordinary recorded deeds.
It does not work, and courts reject it uniformly. A few plain-language points:
- You cannot receive title from someone who never owned the land. The filers were never in the chain of title to these parcels.
- A land patent from the 1800s does not divest today’s record owners. Ownership passed lawfully through the recorded deeds over the following century.
- The legal citations these documents rely on (e.g., “Bagnell v. Broderick,” “U.S. v. Stone,” “Collins v. Bartlett”) are misquoted or taken out of context and do not say what the filings claim.
- As the County Auditor’s office noted, recording a document “does not make it legal or binding, simply public and historical.”
This pattern is common enough that it has a name in law-enforcement circles — “paper terrorism” — and the identical template, wording, and notary across all three of our deeds show they came from the same circulated kit. Understanding this helps explain two things: why the deeds are legally worthless, and why they still must be formally cleared so title companies will insure transactions again.
Full explainer: the sovereign-citizen “land patent” scheme →