“The scammer takes all the money and walks away, and the real property owner now has a lien against them.”
The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office recently warned the public and local real estate and title agencies about ongoing property scams. YCSO has received several separate notifications that scammers are contacting real estate agencies pretending to be the owners of properties around the Prescott area. According to a YCSO news release, the scammer begins by asking the agent to provide a market analysis of the property and then immediately list it for them. In most cases, immediately means either a “short sale” or a cash only sale with a quick close.
The American Bar Association reports that title fraud on property is a serious threat that can leave homeowners in financial ruin. Homeowners may discover unauthorized loans and foreclosure notices on their property because of a forged deed.
Tim Muse, title officer and branch manager at Lawyer’s Title in Prescott Valley, said he recently received a note from a colleague in Show Low warning of a current scam. “I was just hit with someone claiming to be an owner of land here in Show Low,” the colleague said. “I have required a lot of documentation to prove the person is who they say they are. The passport didn’t quite match the name on the tax records, and when I pulled the deed to compare signatures from the title and the passport, it was a complete fraud. I contacted the fraud department at my title company and they confirmed.”
Muse said scammers look for weak links they can exploit. In one example, he said, scammers might peruse county records and look for property owners with common names and of those, choose an out-of-town owner. They then present themselves as the property owner, forge documents to get the title in their name, and take out a loan with the property as collateral. The loan is not paid, and then the rightful property owner receives notification of default, the first time they become aware of the activity.
“Sometimes it gets all the way through,” he said. “The scammer takes all the money and walks away, and the real property owner now has a lien against them. These types of scams seem to be on the increase within the past five years.”
Allie Gosselin, public affairs manager for the Prescott Area Association of Realtors, said last summer the association brought in representatives from YCSO and other agencies to educate realtors and title agents on how to look up information to make sure people are who they declare themselves to be, and how to avoid scams.
Gosselin said PAAR is seeing fewer reports of real estate/title scams this year than last in Yavapai County, mostly because of education and more awareness of potential scams. Like many scams, she said, real estate/title scams target the more mature population, because many people in that demographic are not as familiar with technology and the latest scams that are using artificial intelligence to mimic voices. She finds that agents are assisting each other to learn how to spot scams and protect their clients.
YCSO encourages property owners and real estate/title companies to fight against these scams by putting additional security measures in place:
Title companies and their broker are encouraged to track and verify IP (Internet Protocol) addresses on the web.
All document signings should be in person, either at the title company or by a designated agent’s visit to the new buyer. Document signings should never be done electronically.
To protect real estate agencies from falling victim to this scam, YCSO also recommends that real estate professionals ask questions to help verify if they are speaking with the rightful owners of the property as well as ask both buyer and seller for photo identification.
To combat title fraud, homeowners should check online records regularly and report any suspicious activity promptly, and only report their financial and personal information to trustworthy sources.
Property owners in Yavapai County may protect themselves by signing up for the county’s Eagle Fraud Guard program. This email subscription program allows citizens to proactively monitor and be alerted when a document is recorded in their name and/or a business name in Yavapai County. When documents are recorded, meeting a citizen’s search criteria, an email is automatically generated and sent to the citizen notifying them of the recording along with some basic information about the document.
Real estate and title agents are also encouraged to inform their clients about this service. Property owners can sign up for recorded document alerts on the county website at https://www.yavapaiaz.gov/Mapping-and-Properties/Recorders-Office.
Property owners or agents may contact YCSO’s Fraud Department direct line at 928-771-3299 or dispatch at 928-771-3260, to report or find more information about real estate or title fraud. QCBN
By Heidi Dahms Foster, QCBN
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