County Recorder Offices Continue Efforts To Protect Property Owners Against Scammers Using Forged Land Documents To Snatch & Otherwise Cloud Real Estate Titles

In Madison County, Illinois, The Edwardsville Intelligencer reports:

• It’s all too easy for someone to record a fraudulent deed that makes it appear that the person who filed the deed actually owns your home.
  
  It can have the effect of allowing the fraudster to use the actual homeowner’s name on a mortgage. Even worse, they could try to sell your home to an unwitting buyer.
  
  And according to FBI statistics, property record fraud is the fastest growing white-collar crime in the U.S.
  
  In an effort to reverse that trend, Madison County Recorder Amy Meyer has been encouraging homeowners to sign up for Property Fraud Alerts, which notifies them whenever any document is recorded against their property with their name on it.
  
  And the number of homeowners signing up for those alerts has been growing steadily in the recent months.
  
  Homeowners need only provide the Recorders office with their name, how they would like to be contacted, and a description of their property. Then when any paperwork is filed or recorded in the Recorder’s office pertaining to that property, the owner will be notified about it, Meyer said.
  
  Meyer has been working with Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Gibbons to let people know that property record fraud is a crime.
  
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  In January, 142 signed up to receive “Property Fraud Alerts.” “That’s really an amazing number,” Meyer said. And so far in February, 51 people have signed up, she said.
  
  The recorder’s office first offered the program in 2008. Meyer was elected recorder four years later. The following year – 2013 - 75 people signed up for Property Fraud Alerts, followed by 80 in 2014. In the first eight months of 2015, 111 people signed up for the program. Then, in September, Meyer began mailing the fliers to new property owners and speaking about the issue to local groups. From Sept. 1 through Dec. 31, 2015, nearly 400 people subscribed to the program.
  
  In 2013, the State’s Attorney’s office filed charges against a St. Charles, Mo., man for filing a false lien on properties that US Bank had foreclosed on and sold to someone else. He was sentenced to a year’s probation for attempting to file unlawfully cloud a title, a misdemeanor. Two additional cases have been filed, both of which are pending.
  
  A mechanic’s lien serves to “cloud” a title to the property, which effectively prevents the homeowner from transferring it to someone else.
  
  Meyer says she’s hopeful that educating homeowners and cracking down on cheaters will help slow down property record fraud. “The idea is to not just prevent it or recognize it when it potentially does happen, but to prevent potential fraudsters from coming in here and looking at us as a target,” Meyer said.
  
  Interested residents can sign up for the alerts [here].

Source: Property record fraud a fast growing crime (Alert system available through Madison County Recorder's Office). hijack