{"id":72687,"date":"2024-03-05T09:34:04","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T14:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/?p=72687"},"modified":"2024-03-05T09:34:04","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T14:34:04","slug":"property-deed-fraud-is-growing-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/?p=72687","title":{"rendered":"Property Deed Fraud Is Growing in Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

The switch to online records may be part of the problem. All of Florida\u2019s 67 counties have some sort of property fraud alert program, but more people need to sign up.<\/span><\/h3>\n
\n

ORANGE PARK, Fla. \u2013 Across\u00a0Florida, scammers are selling people’s land and even\u00a0homes\u00a0behind their backs.<\/p>\n

Officials are urging\u00a0property\u00a0owners to protect themselves this week.<\/p>\n

It’s called\u00a0property\u00a0deed fraud, and there’s been a big spike in cases here in\u00a0Florida\u00a0because the\u00a0real estate\u00a0market in the Sunshine State is hot.<\/p>\n

More than 54% of real estate\u00a0professionals experienced it firsthand in just the second half of 2023. It happens when a scammer steals someone’s identity and title and then sells your property without you knowing.<\/p>\n

And that’s exactly what happened to a man in\u00a0North\u00a0Florida.<\/p>\n

“I came from out of town and there was a business card stuck in the door, it was a detective from the Clay County Sheriff\u2019s Office,”\u00a0John Roney\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

That’s how John found out his nearly three-acre\u00a0waterfront lot was almost sold for\u00a0$40 thousand. The bank was just about to hand over the funds at closing when it noticed two things: an incorrect driver’s license number and a misspelling of his last name on the\u00a0property\u00a0deed.<\/p>\n

Clay County’s\u00a0Clerk of Court says Roney is lucky those mistakes were caught.<\/p>\n

“There are instances where, I can think of three, where a person filed a fraudulent deed, and simply changed the name by one letter or to change some of the information in the address or in the text of the document by just one letter or two,”\u00a0Mary Justino\u00a0with the Clerk of Court said.<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is the switch to online. Out of the 65,000 records recorded by\u00a0Clay County’s\u00a0Clerk of Court in 2023, 54,000 were done solely online.<\/p>\n

You can protect yourself by signing up for your local county’s\u00a0property\u00a0fraud alert program. It sends emails and texts if there’s activity on land you own.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t prevent fraud, but it’s like an early warning system. But not many people know about it; out of the roughly 230,000 people who live in\u00a0Clay County, only 28,000 have signed up.<\/p>\n

All of\u00a0Florida’s\u00a067 counties have some sort of property fraud alert program. For more info, go to the\u00a0Florida Court Clerks & Comptrollers website<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The switch to online records may be part of the problem. All of Florida\u2019s 67 counties have some sort of property fraud alert program, but more people need to sign up. ORANGE PARK, Fla. \u2013 Across\u00a0Florida, scammers are selling people’s land and even\u00a0homes\u00a0behind their backs. Officials are urging\u00a0property\u00a0owners to protect themselves this week. It’s called\u00a0property\u00a0deed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1401,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72687"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1401"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72688,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72687\/revisions\/72688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}