The thread about squatters made me think about then ads I see on TV about title theft.
Is it a real thing that happens a lot or is it another scam program to make money for the advertisers?
I have never heard of anybody that has had it happen or anybody that knows somebody that it happened to.

Is it a real thing? Yes.
Is it something you should be worried about happening to you. No, not really.

Yeah, fear mongering.

Funny, hubby and I just mentioned this tonight. Another ad on this came on the tv. Not quite sure how people would do a title theft, or how often this has happened. How do the thieves manage this sort of thing? Do people with an existing mortgage have a higher risk of this, or would it be the opposite? Just wondering.

Say you keep your original deed in your safe in your home and someone steals it. It would do them no good.

So the claims that anybody can present a forged title to the county clerk and the office has to accept it, no questions asked, are false?

I hear those ads all the time, my guess is they're pretty much scammy. If the technical aspects of the problem, or the business model don't make sense, my bs meter needle twitches.

quote:

Originally posted by gjgalligan:
The thread about squatters made me think about then ads I see on TV about title theft.
Is it a real thing that happens a lot or is it another scam program to make money for the advertisers?
I have never heard of anybody that has had it happen or anybody that knows somebody that it happened to.

Yes. It's happened to me (my company, previously).

We caught it because we pulled title in preparation of flipping the house. If we had missed it, the house would have been sold from underneath us to an unsuspecting buyer.

Someone had incorporated a very similar named company and then, using the fake company, sold it and resold it to a string of companies they had owned. Each time they'd pay the property transfer tax creating a layer of "clean" title transfers. They were about to sell the house to an unsuspecting bonafide purchaser for value when we caught it.

Worked with LAPD's financial crimes division in a rare sting. Normally they catch this stuff too late. This time, we got the title company to set up a signing for the final sale and they showed up in person to get it all notarized. That's when the LAPD arrested them.

Spent about $30k in attorneys fees, hearings, etc to clear the title.

0/10, do not recommend.

What Is Home Title Fraud? A Beginner's Guide

The county in which I live offers free title lock/activity monitoring, for which I'm signed up.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ensigmatic,

Kind of tough to happen in Florida

A Quitclaim deed needs two witnesses and all signatures must be notarized

How is a fraudulent transaction not correctable when discovered? If someone files falsified documents to get a title issued, that title is not legitimate no matter how many more cleansing layers of faked sales it goes through.

Doesn't the legitimate owner still have legal claim?

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
How is a fraudulent transaction not correctable when discovered? If someone files falsified documents to get a title issued, that title is not legitimate no matter how many more cleansing layers of faked sales it goes through.

Doesn't the legitimate owner still have legal claim?

A legitimate owner, as against the fraudster, still has claim. But, to clear title, you need a court to order it. It isn't correctable at the clerk-recorders office level.

As between you and a bonafide purchaser for value, that gets more complex and will vary by state. The viewpoint that says the bonafide purchaser would have best claim assumes that the original owner was in a better position to have kept it from happening, and therefore ever so slightly less innocent than the purchaser. Title insurance would pay, but it would of course be a giant shit show of indemnity claims all over.

quote:

Originally posted by colt_saa:
Kind of tough to happen in Florida

A Quitclaim deed needs two witnesses and all signatures must be notarized

Those are hardly barriers.

You show up with a sheet of paper with 3 fake signatures and a fake notarization and literally no one at the recorders office would know or care.

They just record the paperwork. There's no verification. Besides, how would they even verify? It's not like they have a signature on file to compare against.

The recording is public record. It's up to the public (namely, you) to catch mistakes and fraud. If you are lucky, they send a copy of the recording the the property address and you get it in time to fix.

In my over 40 years of banking and my wife’s similar years in title work, we’ve never seen this happen. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen - we just never came across it.

Actually becoming more common here in Florida. Property Appraiser's Office now offers an alert service to notify the current owner if anybody attempts to file any claims, deeds, etc., against your property.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
The country in which I live offers free title lock/activity monitoring, for which I'm signed up.

The Yavapai County (AZ) Recorder's Office has something similar, called Eagle Fraud Guard. You create a guard using name(s) you want alerts about. Whenever any activity occurs under those name(s), you receive an email alert.

Yeah, Missouri, along with every other state I have heard of, requires a deed to be notarized prior to recording.

I worked in title insurance for 30 years and I have never seen this happen.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
What Is Home Title Fraud? A Beginner's Guide

The country in which I live offers free title lock/activity monitoring, for which I'm signed up.

I assume you mean county instead of country.
If so, what county are you in?

I have been a title attorney in Florida for 18 years. Anyone saying that this does not happen just has no concept of the crime and how it is committed and therefore believes it does not happen.

I get notifications from my underwriters almost weekly of properties where this is happening in Florida. A quick check of my email shows 3 properties yesterday, 9 on 3/13, 1 on 3/7, 1 on 3/6 and 1 on 3/4.

Relying on a notary stamp is a joke. They are easily forged and or you can utilize a remote online notary and present a fake ID and get your document notarized easily. These often come from Virginia which has a lower threshold for the KBA portion of their notary verification.

I had a client who had 5 multifamily buildings mortgaged without his knowledge and the scammers got about 3 million in cash, it took him 3 years to get the liens satisfied and cost him around $200,000 in legal to get it all cleaned up.

If your county has a title notification service, sign up for it immediately. But this is often after the fact notice. The best thing to protect yourself is this keep a mortgage on your property so it will ping on a title search. If you own property without a mortgage, go get a line of credit on it. If you own vacant land, sign up for title lock. These scams are far more likely on vacant land than occupied property.

States like Florida which have all of their land records online will be far more likely to have this happen. Although I do know of 2 such crimes which happened in Rhode Island where their title records are examined in person.

This is a crime that you need to take seriously.

quote:

Originally posted by gjgalligan:

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
What Is Home Title Fraud? A Beginner's Guide

The country county in which I live offers free title lock/activity monitoring, for which I'm signed up.

I assume you mean county instead of country.
If so, what county are you in?

Oakland.