There seem to be more and more frequent commercials advertising services to protect homeowners from “home title fraud”. These commercials are not talking about fraudulent applications for mortgages, although that probably happens frequently. Instead, they are talking about someone who forges a deed to themselves and then tries to borrow money against the property or resell the property to a third party. Despite the frantic tone of the commercials, one has to wonder just how common home title theft is.
The FBI reported that in 2017, 9600 people lost a total of $56 million through wire fraud involving real estate. However, that is an extremely broad category and the FBI has not published statistics so far that delineate how much of this is “home title fraud”. In my experience, in Texas it is not very common. I looked for statistics regarding this kind of fraud nationally but numbers just aren’t available.
There are a number of things to know about this kind of fraud. First, in Texas, keep in mind that this kind of fraud is enabled if an unsuspecting buyer purchases property from someone without going through a title company. The title company closing process includes protections designed to prevent this kind of fraud.
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