If you are a homeowner or landowner, you are probably alarmed if you have read or heard about criminals stealing homes and land via title theft. Let’s discuss the odds and what can be done about it.
Ironically, as discussed later, the duped buyer and mortgage lender of the property often stand to lose the most money, especially if they fail to procure Owners Title Insurance. You don’t often hear about the buyer’s risk, probably because reporting a “stolen home” gets more attention in the media.
Disclaimer: I am not an attorney. Please contact your own attorney for an official legal answer. The explanations below are based on my understanding after researching this issue.
The Odds of being a victim
One significant announcement was made by the Boston division of the FBI in April, 2025. You can read the announcement here.
First, let’s talk about the odds. The data provided in the FBI report said that there were 58,141 victims of some type of real estate fraud (Title fraud is a subset of this number) for the five year period from 2019 – 2023. If there are approximately 85 million homeowners in the United States, that would be a 0.014% chance in any given year. Said differently, every year approximately one in 7,300 homeowners are subject to some type of real estate fraud. This is about as common than finding a four leaf clover (one in 10,000).
If you take part in a real estate transaction (the buyer in many of these cases), your odds are worse. There are approximately 4 to 6 million home real estate transactions per year. Using 5 million as a reasonable average puts the odds of being involved in a real estate scam, at about 1 in 430. Still pretty low at 0.23%, but less favorable than an existing homeowner at one in 7,300.
So, before you panic, think for a moment about those odds. I suppose some crimes might go unreported, but I suspect with the kind of losses we are talking about, the odds of not reporting a significant real estate loss would be quite slim.
To quote Jim Carrey from the movie Dumb and Dumber, “so you’re saying there is a chance.” Since there still is a chance, and the fact that this is a big ticket theft, let’s continue the discussion.
What is Home Title Theft
This is when someone pretends to be an owner of a property in order to “steal the title” so they can convert the equity in the property to cash for them. This is often called “Seller Impersonation Fraud.”
In order to pull off this scam, they often look for vacant land and unoccupied properties. This makes it easier for them to pull off the charade, since the real owners are often not around. So, beware if you own vacant land or an unoccupied property, as you are a more desirable target.
They also look for properties that are owned free and clear. This ensures that the property has the most equity possible, and that a lender won’t be involved for a mortgage note payoff. Note that this information is very easy to get for any property, as it is readily availably online via your County records office.
To speed up the sale process, believe it or not, the scam artist will sometimes contact a realtor to list the property for sale. Again, if the owner is not around, they likely won’t be aware of the For Sale signage or other activity at the property. To be more discrete, many scam artists will instead attempt a For Sale by Owner (FSBO) sale so they can minimize contact with others.
Properties are typically offered at much less than market value in order to prompt a quick sale. Once a buyer is found, the criminal then fraudulently pre-signs the sale documents, often including a fake notary seal so they don’t have to attend the closing in person. When the funds get wired to them at closing, they have completed the scam by taking the money of the buyer and mortgage lender (if applicable).
Legally, the real owner is still remains the rightful owner, as a fraudulent title transfer is invalid. However, just like any kind of fraud, it will likely cost the real owner a significant amount of time and money (hiring a lawyer and court costs) to get things cleared up.
How is this possible?
It still seems hard to believe that someone can pull this off, but it has been happening. This means there are several cracks in the process, including some professionals that apparently are not operating with a dose of healthy skepticism.
First, if a realtor is involved, they could be more skeptical in dealing with sellers. Sellers that don’t want to talk on the phone, and only want to communicate via text and email should be a big red flag. At the end of the day, the realtor will waste time and effort on a fraudulent transaction. Whatever commission they thought they earned will likely get paid back to repay the victims.
Second, most sales involve title insurance issued to the buyer (Owners Title Insurance) and lender (Lenders Title Insurance). It would be risky (although apparently it happens, especially in all cash transactions) for a buyer to not get an Owners title insurance policy as part of the transaction. Since most transactions have one or both of these title policies issued, the title company would generally be the primary party on the hook for the loss since a clean title was not conveyed. That being the case, I suspect that Title companies are ramping up their identification processes to validate sellers a lot more thoroughly.
Third, the County Clerk typically just records the title transfer documents. If the documents looks legit, they will record it. Their role is generally not to combat fraud, so they won’t often do much more than record the documents if the paperwork is completed correctly. This is changing in some states, such as Georgia, as you will see below.
Finally, what does the real homeowner lose? Is their home or land really stolen? Once again, if the transfer of title is fraudulent and invalid, the real owner still legally remains the rightful owner. It will likely cost the real owner time and legal fees to get this cleared up, but this does not sound as scary as it’s being portrayed by many title monitoring services and alarming news articles.
Let’s break this down again, based on the scenario described above:
- The scam artist gets away with money at closing
- The buyer (down payment) and lender (if applicable) are initially out the money they paid. These are the primary victims in the scam.
- The Title Company will likely need to make the buyer and lender whole because clean title was not conveyed. This makes the Title Company the party that stands to ultimately lose the most money in this fraud.
- The Realtor will be required to pay back the commission paid on the fraudulent transaction, so for them it was a waste of time and effort.
- The real owner is collateral damage in the scam, as they will likely need a real estate attorney to get their legal ownership restored. This can cost thousands in attorney fees and months of time going through the legal process.
Other Variations of home title theft
Another variation is when the thief submits a quitclaim deed to the Register of Deeds office to transfer the property title from the real owner to a fictitious company or to themselves. They or their fake company are then seen as the owner. The criminal then attempts to sell the property to an unsuspecting buyer.
The difference from the original example above is that they don’t need to masquerade as the real owner at the closing, since they are representing themselves or a company they created. The result is the same in that they using the real owners’ title in order to scam a buyer and mortgage lender (if applicable) to get their money.
Home Equity Theft
Home Equity theft is when the criminal impersonates the real owner to take out a home equity loan so they can get some of the home equity out as cash. They just need to fool a lender into performing the transaction.
Sometimes the criminal will transfer the property to themselves or a fictitious person or company first, and then attempt to borrow money against the property. In this case the lien is still attached to the property as collateral, just with a different debtor.
if the loan attempt is in your name (identity theft), I see this one as relatively easy to prevent. If you freeze your credit with each of the three major credit bureaus, this should stop this type of fraud. Almost all lenders will check the customers’ credit report before lending money. If the credit of the real customer is frozen, the scam artist will not be able to unfreeze the credit. This should prevent the lender from lending money to the scammer under the real owners name and social security number.
If a scam artist takes out the loan in their name, or some other name, the real owner won’t be the debtor, which is a good thing. However, the real owner still has the issue of having to get the fraudulent lien off of their property record. This will likely require legal assistance, which of course includes those costs.
In Home Equity theft, the duped lender is the primary victim. The real property owner is the secondary victim, having to clear up their title by removing the bogus lien on the property and possibly a fraudulent loan in their name.
Title Fraud Examples
If you want to read about some real cases, review the summaries below, and then click the links if you want to read the details.
Zina Thomas case: Over 30 homes were stolen in a Detroit quitclaim deed fraud case. The criminal transferred ownership to fictitious entities by filing quitclaim deeds with the County Clerks office. These fictitious entities then sold the properties to unsuspecting buyers.
Martinez case: In a 2023 case, at least 37 homes in Texas had their titles compromised. Similar to the Thomas case above, the couple transferred the property titles using quitclaim deeds. In this case, they transferred the properties to their own name (instead of a fictitious entity), and then sold the properties to unsuspecting buyers.
Houston title scam: Over 70 homes were stolen via a theft ring. Titles of vacant properties were transferred to fake companies, and then sold to unsuspecting buyers. In the featured story, one couple spent $30,000 and months of time fixing up a home they purchased, only to later find that their purchase of the property was not legit.
Facebook Marketplace sale: This is a reddit post that provides a typical example of title fraud. In 2019, a criminal forged a deed to transfer the property to their name from an 73 year old man in ailing health that was not living in the home at the time. The home was then sold by the criminal a month later on Facebook Marketplace.
Cracks in the process & new efforts
So, after digesting this, what are some of the real issues that need to get addressed?
A notary stamp can no longer be relied upon as a near certain guarantee of seller validation. It is too easy today with computers to forge a notary seal to fool the recipient. In other cases, just like in any fraud, if multiple parties collude it is very difficult to stop. For example, if a criminal works with a crooked notary, they can collude together to create a bogus notarization.
The Title company (if there is one), is most often going to be looked at to make the buyer and lender whole. As a result, these companies have been stepping up their validation efforts in addition to searching title records. A thorough validation of the sellers goes a long way in stopping this fraud.
Realtors can also help combat these issues by using healthy skepticism when dealing with sellers. If the realtor and seller never meet face to face, walk the property together, or have any of the other typical seller and broker interactions, it should raise some immediate red flags. Since the realtor represents the seller, they should know a little more about the seller than just a name and email address. Having face to face video calls at a minimum would help a lot. Failure to sniff this fraud out early will also result in the realtor wasting their time and effort, in addition to giving back their commission.
Many Register of Deeds offices are upping their game by offering free notification services to property owners. This is often called a Recording Notification Service (RNS). By signing up for this free service, the real owner will get notified if anything is filed related to their property. This is a basic service that should be offered in all counties in all states. Unfortunately, it might not be available everywhere yet.
More States need to pass legislation to improve the process and increase accountability. For example, Georgia passed House Bill 1292, effective January 1, 2025. This law requires the Register of Deeds to validate the identity of the party filing a deed to transfer ownership of property. It also requires notaries to keep detailed records on all of their notarization activities, including the location and identification verified upon providing the notarization. This is an effort to hold County clerks and notaries more accountable. These changes won’t stop all cases, but it should make great strides in combating the problem.
A Common Thread of these crimes
From what I can tell, the vast majority of these cases involve vacant land or unoccupied properties. Either the homes were abandoned, or the owner lived elsewhere, at least temporarily. In other cases, the homeowner passed away and the inheriting family falls victim to the crime as they often live out of town.
It is more rare if the home is occupied, as trying to sell a home out from under someone while they live there is much more difficult.
So, if you own your home and occupy it, your risks are much lower than someone who owns vacant land or an unoccupied property.
What action can you take
Property Owners
You should inquire if your county has a Recording Notification Service (RNS). This would inform you of any filings related to your property. Even though such a notification is after the fact, this would allow you to take immediate action to challenge the fraudulent document. Often, as noted in some of the cases above, this is often the first step of the fraud whereby the criminal transfers ownership to themselves or a fictitious entity. The next step is when they attempt to sell the property to an unsuspecting buyer. By taking immediate action, the real owner can stop this fraud right after the first step occurs.
If your country does not yet offer a RNS, you can easily confirm the ownership of your property and review filed documents by going online. You can do this by entering your property tax id number or address in most Register of Deeds online portals. This only takes a few minutes. If you checked your county website every week, bi-weekly or once per month (depending on your level of concern), you would notice if there were any filings related to your property. You could pay $15 a month or more to an independent Home Title monitoring service, but as you can see, that is quite expensive for something you can do easily yourself.
You can get Homeowners Title Insurance, or Enhanced Owners Title Insurance. This is a variation to the standard Owners Title Insurance in that it covers for title issues created after your purchase. The standard Owners Title Insurance covers you if your title is not clean when you bought the property (looks at the past), but it doesn’t cover you for what happens after you own it (future issues). Enhanced coverage would protect you financially if anything happens to your title after you own it. This policy can be expensive, so you should weigh the risks yourself before making a final decision. Check with your Title Company to confirm what your current policy covers (you may already have coverage), as well as options to get enhanced coverage if your current policy does not cover this.
Freezing your credit with each of three major credit bureaus is an important step to prevent an impostor from borrowing money as if they are you. This would protect you from bogus home equity loans in your name, as well as any other loans, as most if not all lenders will want to pull your credit file before lending.
If you own vacant land or an unoccupied property, you should step up your effort to keep tabs on the property. Talk to neighbors and ask if they can notify you if anything occurs on your property, such as a sale sign or construction activity.
You can also set up a Google alert with your property address. This alert notification would tell you if your address shows up as a property for sale on the internet, which would allow you take immediate action to ward off the threat. Here is a real example where the Google alert really paid off for a vacant land owner in Maryland.
If you own your property free and clear, one tactic to help deter home title theft might be to open up a home equity line of credit (HELOC) on your own property. For example, let’s say that you open up a home equity line of credit with your lender, with the ability to borrow up to $30,000. A lien then gets recorded on your property by the lender. In practice, you don’t need to use the line, so you can keep it at zero dollars borrowed. There is typically a nominal annual fee from most lenders to keep the line active, such as $50 per year. Because there is a lien on the property, scam artists will likely avoid the property as they seek to find properties that have no liens recorded. In practice, you owe zero on the line because you didn’t use it. There is the ongoing cost with the annual fee (check with your lender), but this approach might be worth the cost to some as a potential deterrent.
Property Buyers
Property buyers, in my opinion, have the most to lose. If a buyer purchases a property for all cash, and does not get Title Insurance, they could lose everything in one of these scams.
With that being said, getting Title Insurance when buying a property is a must. Ask questions to ensure that the policy also gives you fraud coverage. You want to make sure there is no wiggle room for the Title company to try to avoid paying up.
You should enter the purchase transaction with a dose of healthy skepticism. It’s okay to ask the listing agent if they have met the seller, and to ask more questions about who you are entering into a transaction with. It even makes sense to check the Register of Deeds office to see if there have been any recent deed transfers on the property. Remember, in many of these scams, the criminal submits a quitclaim deed to transfer the property to themselves or a fictitious company right before selling it to an unsuspecting buyer. If you see a recent deed filing, your antenna should go up immediately.
Remember the old adage, “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” If you are getting an unusually good deal, with a sales price way below fair market value, you should be skeptical. There should be a reason that makes sense. Why is the property so cheap? Why wouldn’t the seller be okay with not getting fair value?
Be skeptical if it is For Sale By Owner (FSBO) with a seller that is pushing for a quick all cash sale, especially if they want to avoid using attorneys or title companies. Combine this with a price that is too good to be true and you have a recipe for a potential fraud disaster.
Process Improvement Idea
The financial services industry has made significant improvements over the years to protect bank account and investment owners from fraud and theft. One of the basic protections is offering two factor authentication. This would typically be a code that is sent to the cell phone number or email on file.
Why don’t the County Register of Deeds offices adopt a similar process for any Deeds that request a title transfer? This would stop the threat right at this point, rather than providing an after the fact notification service. Using this approach, the Register of Deeds office would not process the title transfer without a two factor authentication from the real owner.
Summary
Hopefully we have done a reasonable job breaking down this issue along with risk mitigation efforts that you can perform as a property owner or buyer.
Note that in most cases the buyer and lender (if applicable) are the primary victims. The property owner is a secondary victim, as their property is used to commit the crime.
As pointed out at the beginning of this post, the odds of being a victim is quite low. However, because there is still a chance it makes sense to consider implementing some of the suggestions mentioned above to protect yourself, just in case.
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