By filing a simple one-page form, unscrupulous scammers can easily lock up your title. Once filed, the majority of county recorders offices automatically assume that the property owner is informed, but there is no consistent system for actually informing the owner of the property.
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Definition: Used in some states for the sale or transfer of real property from one person or entity to another person or entity. Must be notarized and signed by both parties.
Scenario: Scammer forges and records new deed becoming the new owner, takes out a large loan on the property, doesn’t make payments on the loan sending your property into foreclosure.
Title Lock: Owner would be notified that the name on the Grant Deed/Warranty Deed had been changed and stop the scammer before the loan is obtained.
Definition: Document of conveyance of real property that passes any title, claim, or interest that the grantor has in the premises but does not make any representations as to the validity of such title.
Scenario: Scammer forges a Quitclaim Deed making himself the new property owner and sells or borrows against the property.
Title Lock: Owner would be notified that the Quitclaim Deed had been filed. In many cases Title Lock can help prevent the sale of or borrowing against the property.
Definition: The holding of an estate or property jointly by two or more parties, the share of each passing to the other or others upon death.
Scenario: A caretaker (could be anyone though) changes the deed adding themselves as a Joint Tenancy. After the death, scammer files an Affidavit of Death of Joint Tenant. They are now the sole owner of the home.
Title Lock: Find out if you or your family is already a victim. Title Lock can tell if your family's property has become the target of a Joint Tenancy scam.
CONSUMER ALERT: What Should You Do If You Learn that a Forged and/or Fraudulent Deed Has Been Recorded Against Your Real Property? By Wayne S. Bell (Chief Counsel) and Summer B. Bakotich (Special Investigator) - California Department of Real Estate In the current economic climate, criminal fraud related to real property deeds appears to be.
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A felon who stuck more than a thousand homeowners in Arizona and California with bogus liens as part of a credit-collection scam has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. How Jeff McCoon ended up behind bars has less to do with the liens he filed than a set of circumstances that took seven years to...
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NBC 5's Lisa Parker gets at the heart of the problem with property and recording fraud: criminals and bad actors abusing the open recording system and a collective sense of honesty on which we all rely. Because homeowner's can't "freeze" their property titles and because County Recorders aren't allowed by law to verify legal claims...
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One of the growing concerns for county recorders throughout the United States is the increase in property fraud. To prove the point about how easy it is to perpetrate this kind of property fraud, the Daily News in New York stole the Empire State Building as a prank last December. They did return it. What..
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SACRAMENTO, CA - Charles Head, 40, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, (formerly of Los Angeles and Orange County), was sentenced today by United States District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller to 35 years in prison, United States Attorney Benjamin Wagner announced. A hearing to determine the amount of restitution has been set for November 22, 2014. In sentencing, Judge Mueller...
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SACRAMENTO, CA - The California Department of Real Estate (DRE) issued a Consumer Alert last week about the growing number of scams that involve forged or fraudulent property deeds and what consumers can do to protect themselves against such fraud. The DRE is a state department whose mission is to protect the public interests in real estate...
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