What if you woke up one morning to find out your house was no longer your home?
Title fraud is a real concern to homeowners.
Title fraud is a real estate scam where someone illegally transfers the ownership or title of a property to themselves or another party without the knowledge or consent of the legitimate property owners.
They do this by first gathering information about the property they target. Most of it is publicly available, like property owner, address and legal description.
The scammer then forges documents such as deeds, mortgage receipts or transfer documents. They might also use stolen identity information to look legit.
Forged documents are then sent to a government authority to enact the transfer of property. The title is then transferred over and the fraudster can now sell the property, take out a mortgage or loan on the property, or lease the property to tenants.
The most vulnerable to this type of fraud are seniors, homeowners who use the property for vacation or rental and therefore aren’t on premises, those who’ve been victims of identity theft, and those with paid-off properties.
How to protect your property?
The Los Angeles County Assessor has just instituted a “Homeowner Alert” program – where you get a notice by email anytime something is recorded on your property, such as a grant deed, a deed of trust or a lien.
By registering your email address with your property, they will notify you within 48 hours of any activity recorded on your property, which can be an important tool to address fraudulent deeds and other recordings.
Keep your home protected and get alerted whenever a foreclosure, transfer of tile, fraudulently recorded deed or mortgage is recorded on your property with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk.
To sign up for the alert, visit assessor.lacounty.org.
The Assessor’s Office has the following four primary responsibilities:
– Locate all taxable property in the County and identify ownership.
– Establish a taxable value for all property subject to property taxation.
– Complete an assessment roll showing the assessed values of all property.
– Apply all legal exemptions.
The Los Angeles County Assessor’s Office is the largest office of its kind in the nation with 1,400 employees and provides the foundation for a property tax system that generates $24 billion annually.
The current Los Angeles County Assessor is Jeffrey Prang, who was elected in 2014 as the 27th Assessor for the County of Los Angeles and re-elected in 2018 and 2022.
