5 ways to stay safe from home title theft

Stealing someone’s house does not always involve burglars breaking into the property and ransacking the place. A particularly nightmarish scenario for homeowners is when unknown entities sneakily try to steal the title of their property. If that happens, such individuals lose legal control of their own house and are forced to cede its possession if they do not act fast. To avoid such an outcome, here is a homeowner’s guide to staying safe from home title theft.

Keeping track of one’s mail
Homeowners are legally the recipients of all the mail – including bills, subscription-based products, purchases made, notices, and others – delivered into the house. A sign that an individual’s home title is under threat is when they abruptly stop receiving their bills and other important mail that they would otherwise get without fail. Not receiving mail is a sign that the actual title owner of the house has changed the address. To stay on the safe side, it is advisable for users to carefully store their deed and mortgage statements to prove ownership of their house in case matters end up in court.

Getting title insurance
Both lenders and homeowners can purchase title insurance. When an individual buys a house out of their pocket, the original lender mandates their purchase of the insurance to ensure that there are no liens or other disruptive elements in the way of the individual buying the property. So, the insurance company, in a way, guarantees that the sale of the house is legitimate and offers repayments to the lender if it is not. Additionally, title insurance also pays for legal fees in the future in case unforeseen liens or financial claims come against one’s home after they have bought it legally. In this way, fraudulent claims of ownership can be staved off for good if a person has title insurance to their name for a property that is rightfully theirs.

Keeping oneself educated about title scams
Another way to prevent title theft is to know all the ways and workarounds regarding how the criminal act can be done. For instance, certain title scammers pose as property dealers, lenders, or real estate agents to do fraudulent transactions or identity theft. In other instances, such malicious entities may try to reverse mortgage scam original homeowners. This results in such owners being dragged into deep debt over time. Finally, scammers may also offer false information, such as great deals and interest rates on a property, to unsuspecting individuals to illegally obtain their sensitive personal and financial data.

Monitoring one’s credit reports closely
Credit card owners receive annual credit reports from each of the three major reporting agencies. The homeownership details and other critical information are clearly mentioned in such reports. Homeowners can clearly check and verify these reports to see whether any malicious entity is opening a new account in their name or making any kind of unauthorized changes or transactions to their existing documents.

Keeping one’s private information confidential
Getting access to an individual’s private information is a way for title scammers to work their way toward stealing title credentials from the former. To avoid that, it is wise for people to keep their private documents, educational certificates, confidential financial statements, and property ownership records strictly to themselves.