Did you know that someone can “steal” your house or use it to borrow money and leave you obligated to pay off the loan? The good news is that not all hope is lost: you can protect yourself from deed theft schemes with Deedlock.
What is Deed Theft?
Also known as “deed fraud,” deed theft occurs when someone steals the identity of the homeowner by using personal information, forges their name on a deed, and takes the title to their home.
How can someone “steal” your house?
Deed theft schemes specifically target homes whose owners are deceased. Scammers know that these properties are vulnerable and aim to steal them away from the deceased owner’s rightful heirs by targeting family members who may not be entitled to inherit part or all of the property.
They’ll impersonate the homeowner by stealing their identity and documents. Armed with forged documents, the thieves circumvent the legitimacy checks of real estate filings and file paperwork.
They transfer the house to another third party or borrow against it without owners catching wind of it. On their target list are homeowners in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods who are struggling with mortgage repayments. Abandoned homes or those owned by the elderly are also at risk.
How can you protect yourself?
The sad thing is that banks and homeowners insurance policies don’t cover deed theft. So you have to check the land records regularly. Having alerts when anybody accesses your title or mortgage is an excellent place to start.
Our solution: protect yourself with Deedlock.
Deedlock is a platform to help real people (attorneys, real estate agents, buyers and sellers) secure and monitor their property or government documents in a public blockchain registry.
If someone accesses your deed and you are protected by DeedLock; you will receive a notification about the attempt, enabling you to respond as quickly as possible.
Our platform enables property owners and developers to tokenize property and create customized smart contracts, legally recognized in their jurisdiction, and to perform the token distributions necessary to either sell or register the property.
Tokenizing ownership will dramatically change every type of operation in the real estate market, from ownership structure to the purchase and sale process and in the process it will reduce fraud.
We help our clients through the key challenges of setting up digital identities, signatures, wallets, Know Your Customer requirements (KYC) and when relevant to navigate Anti-Money Laundering regulations (AML).
Our platform customers are ready for their digital futures and their assets are vastly more secure than without logging and registration on a blockchain.
Barristers Title and Escrow Services
With offices in five states, Barristers Title and Escrow Services strives to meet the needs of our clients at the lowest cost through the efforts of our dedicated team of industry professionals. We are a national leader in title insurance and are well versed in the home buying and selling process. Our full-service capabilities make your experience as efficient as possible.
To learn more about Barristers and Deedlock your title, get in touch with a Barristers representative by visiting HowardHanna.com/Barristers today.
