![]() “From what I’ve been able to find, this is rare,” Colleen Taylor of the Old Republic National Title Insurance Co. “If it comes up once a year, I’d be surprised,” Nathan Bossers of Boston National Title told me. ![]() While some jurisdictions said it is not common, others said it was epidemic.īut Steve Gottheim, general counsel for the American Land Title Association (ALTA), told ABC that his members are “not seeing nationwide.” But the document he provided was nearly two decades old and “wasn’t about home title theft at all,” but rather mortgage fraud, ABC found.Īs the network points out, the two are entirely different: “Mortgage fraud involves lying to lenders to obtain loans, while title theft involves filing fraudulent documents with county authorities to claim ownership of a property.”ĪBC also checked with numerous sources to see just how prevalent title theft really is. Another Title Lock spokesman, former FBI agent Art Pfizenmayer, provided a document to ABC to try to justify the claim. In a major story published in mid-June, the network said the FBI has no evidence of ever making such an assertion. Indeed, the company claims that the FBI classifies home title theft as “one of the fastest growing” crimes in America.ĪBC News has thoroughly trashed that claim, along with the unsubstantiated claims of two supposed victims of the crime. But the company, whose spokesmen include defrocked attorney Rudy Giuliani and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, maintains it happens with regularity. There’s no telling how often home title theft occurs. To “protect” homeowners from this scam, Home Title Lock said it will monitor a subscriber’s title, 24-7, and notify them right away if anyone tampers with it. Unless the deed is obviously fake, it is recorded as a matter of course. The county recorder is obligated to place the title in the records, but not to verify its legality. The bad guys do this by simply forging your name on a deed and recording it with county officials. ![]() Home title theft is when a criminal gains the title to your home and either sells it or takes out a mortgage on it. Such, it appears, is the case with Home Title Lock, an outfit that promises to “protect” you from home title theft. Calculating people are always looking for ways to separate the rest of us from our money.
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