Home Title Fraud: Protect Yourself

Don’t be an easy target for home title fraud. Learn ways that you can protect yourself.

Thieves love to commit home title fraud beginning with identity theft. Carefully check your bank statements and your mail with caution. Never open suspicious emails from mortgage companies that aren’t yours. Review your credit reports on a regular basis. Verify the information on your house at your county recorder or assessor’s office. Physically monitor additional properties in your name or have it done regularly by a trusted individual. Whenever you purchase property, make sure your title company is licensed. Register for your county’s consumer notification service. They’ll alert you anytime a document is recorded on your property. Once thieves gain a fraudulent title, they can rip you off in a number of ways, like…  

• Refinancing the home, then pocketing the difference. Homeowners often don’t know about it until they receive foreclosure notices.

• Opening a home equity line of credit, or HELOC, in your name, then taking the cash and leaving you with the debt and foreclosure notices. 

• Or offering refinancing deals and scamming seniors or those in financial crisis situations.

• Targeting empty homes, vacation homes, or the property of a deceased homeowner whose estate is in probate. They sell the  property and make off with the profits. 

Norton.com has helpful information. 

King Solomon said: “…the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.” So be alert and guard yourself from title fraud

In my new book, Seven Gray Swans, I describe potentially significant events that could happen. A gray swan is an obvious danger that we tend to ignore.  My goal is to show you how to prepare for and survive these economic threats. You can find the ebook online at Amazon.com.