Has anyone subscribed to a "Title Lock" company? I'm beginning to see more and more ads regarding how this is becoming a serious crime where it would not be so hard for a thief/scammer to basically take over the title of your house and you would never know about it. They than sell the home (which sounds strange as it appears like the house would not shown and there wouldn't even be a realtor involved) or if not sold the scammer would then cash out on the equity of the home. So is this FEAR mongering or is this real? Just curious to see if anyone has taken steps to prevent this horrible crime?
Otherwise, I don't see how someone can steal a title to a home. It's filed in county records, conveyance is notarized, a consideration must be transferred to the previous owner...this doesn't seem like it's logistically possible.
Mostly I've seen it in distressed neighborhoods, but it is all too easy to implement, and very, very hard to undo once it happens.
you would think so - but many time this happens and it takes many years before it is discovered. Most people don't check their title periodically. And even when it is discovered the proofs are more difficult than you would think it ought to be, making it very hard to undo.
There are two cases I know of prosecutions on this, and the fraudster in both cases had done several of them. They took place over a 20 year period and even then they had difficulty unraveling which of the filings were fraudulent and which weren't.
yes -- this is exactly how they do it.
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to follow up, fraud does exist, of course, so a criminal could do attempt to fraudulently file deed transfer paperwork and so forth with forged documents, but this would be fraud, and would probably be very easily found out and prosecuted.
you would think so - but many time this happens and it takes many years before it is discovered. Most people don't check their title periodically. And even when it is discovered the proofs are more difficult than you would think it ought to be, making it very hard to undo.
There are two cases I know of prosecutions on this, and the fraudster in both cases had done several of them. They took place over a 20 year period and even then they had difficulty unraveling which of the filings were fraudulent and which weren't.
Can you please inform me how does one check their title? Thank you
It took more than a modicum of effort, but ultimately the Court determined that there was no transfer of the property to the alleged purchasers. At the end of the day, the actual owner kept the property, the defrauded purchasers were reimbursed for the full purchase price by their title insurance, and at least some of the fraudsters were caught and ultimately incarcerated.
As far as someone filing a purely "fake" deed and then later transferring it to a third-party, I would imagine that this is fairly uncommon and ultimately the outcome would be the same as described above.
Also, I would imagine that title companies are going to be pretty leery of an unfinanced buyer who quickly looks to sell the property for a similar purchase price. The chain of events would look suspicious on a title report.
People worried about this are respectful of those around them? What a travesty!
If you have lived in your house for a reasonably long time, paid taxes and utility bills, I would not worry about it.
However, it is worth checking the deed and title to make sure there are no errors. For example, a misspelled last name or title that was not updated properly
To me, I would only consider a company like this if I had elderly parents living in NY and I lived in another part of the country and I did not want them to fall prey to some fraud. But for a normal family, it seems completely unnecessary.
It took more than a modicum of effort, but ultimately the Court determined that there was no transfer of the property to the alleged purchasers. At the end of the day, the actual owner kept the property, the defrauded purchasers were reimbursed for the full purchase price by their title insurance, and at least some of the fraudsters were caught and ultimately incarcerated.
As far as someone filing a purely "fake" deed and then later transferring it to a third-party, I would imagine that this is fairly uncommon and ultimately the outcome would be the same as described above.
Also, I would imagine that title companies are going to be pretty leery of an unfinanced buyer who quickly looks to sell the property for a similar purchase price. The chain of events would look suspicious on a title report.
Yeah, I was going to add, this is what title insurance is for.