Scammers and fraudsters are just a common fact of life these days. From credit card hackers to criminals who pretend to be family members, cops or IRS representatives, it seems everyone has been or is a potential victim of something nefarious crime. One of the most costly crimes can be what is known as title fraud or deed theft and we’re on high alert in the real estate industry. Almost weekly I get notices from the Washington County, Park City or Salt Lake Boards of REALTORS about someone pretending to be someone else to sell a property they don’t own. So how does this set up?

The crooks look up public records of owners of land or homes in the county. They may or may not drive by to see what it looks like but simply pretend to be the owner and call a licensed real estate agent to say something like, “I own this piece of land and need to sell it fast-I’ll sell it now for half of what it’s worth because I’m in a time crunch-can you help?” They go further by forging documents showing ownership or transfer of ownership with their name on it and forge driver’s licenses or other ID’s, so if you’re dealing with someone via text, Facetime or Zoom you don’t necessarily see the real documents when they photograph or hold up to the camera proof of their ID and ownership. The goal is that they can sell the property they don’t own fast, get the cash and not get caught before the whole thing unravels. If your property deed gets illegally transferred it could be hell getting your property back without the thief encdumbering your property with loans and liens you never were a part of as the true owner.

You may get phone calls or mail from companies wanting to sell you ‘deed insurance’. Forget that! You can sign up FREE for ‘Property Watch’ through the Tax Assessors office  that will enable you to keep track of recorded changes to your property with free alerts you can get by text or email. This allows you upon notification to take immediate action in making sure that bogus effort to own or encumber your property with a fake lien can be investigated and hopefully cleared. I’ve heard stories from escrow officers around the state of X-wives and husbands, estranged family members or even neighbors who attempt to gain what isn’t their right to own via fraud,  and some do succeed for awhile until the police and or courts get involved-which can take time and cost money. It’s standard at the close of escrow to sign a notice that wire fraud is rampant and that if a buyer or seller is asked during the transaction to transfer funds BUT to change the wire /routing number to call to verify with the title company that change or you may lose all your money in an instant, forever. Ugh.