By Alex Gillen
February 24, 2023
You may have heard rumblings about home thefts via deed fraud. Deed fraud is a scam rooted in forgeries and identity theft, but it is not new. The FBI wrote about “house stealing” in 2008, but there were not good monitoring options at the time. Today, there is good news.
You can better protect yourself from deed fraud by signing up for free email alerts from your County Clerk. Your County Clerk “will alert a subscriber via email every time a land records document is recorded containing the registered name.” One sign-up suggests registering multiple variations of your name to achieve the best results. Please contact your County Clerk with any questions about its service.
You can sign up for these services by going to the following link for your county:
| Indian River County: | https://ori.indian-river.org/FraudAlert |
| Martin County: | http://or.martinclerk.com/LandmarkWeb/FraudAlert |
| Okeechobee County: | https://pioneer.okeechobeelandmark.com/LandmarkWebLive/FraudAlert |
| Palm Beach County: | https://erec.mypalmbeachclerk.com/FraudAlert |
| Saint Lucie County: | https://propertyfraudalert.stlucieclerk.gov/Identity/Account/Register |
The occurrence of deed fraud is more infrequent than some for-profit monitoring companies represent, so much so that one state attorney general is investigating a deed fraud monitoring company for misrepresentations. Still, it does not hurt to sign up for alerts for your name with your County Clerk. We definitely recommend you do.
If you are concerned about fraud, we recommend you consult an attorney. You can also contact the Florida Attorney General on its fraud hotline at 1-866-9-NO-SCAM or online at myfloridalegal.com if you feel you are being taken advantage of by a person or company.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
