Even if you don’t lose your property, title fraud can have real consequences
4 min
When a company tried in May to auction off Graceland, the iconic former home of music legend Elvis Presley in Memphis, a Tennessee court stepped in to stop it.
The court stopped the sale because the company that was trying to auction off the property was fake. Also fraudulent were the supporting documents the fraudsters presented that purported to show that Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’s late daughter, had defaulted on a loan they claimed they made to her for which she used Graceland as collateral.
While this audacious and complex attempt at defrauding a famous family made national news, most other cases of attempted title theft or mortgage fraud don’t. But homes such as Graceland, where the original owners are deceased, are popular targets for scammers, according to Victor Petrescu, a real-estate attorney with Levine Kellogg Lehman Schneider & Grossman in Miami.
Homes with out-of-state owners, vacant plots of land and investment properties owned by limited liability companies are also particularly vulnerable, he said.
Here’s how it works: A fraudster targets your house and assumes your identity, using tactics similar to identity thieves to acquire your personal information and create fake IDs. He or she then tries to sell it to an unsuspecting buyer by executing a forged deed in your name. An alternative scam is to submit a mortgage application in your name to get cash out of the house.
The good news is that except in very rare circumstances, a fake deed won’t transfer your title, even if it initially gives the appearance of a transfer in public records, nor will a forged mortgage create any obligation for an innocent homeowner to pay. The bad news is that restoring your title and clearing the property of any fraudulent mortgages can be a lengthy and expensive process.
Sarah Frano, a vice president and real-estate fraud expert at First American Title Insurance Co., said there has been a sharp rise in seller impersonation fraud over the past few years, where a fraudster impersonates an owner by forging a deed conveying property to an unsuspecting buyer.
Several factors are driving the increase, including the rising popularity of remote closings and notarisations, where the parties aren’t present in person at the closing table. Home equity, which hit a record $16.9 trillion in the first quarter of 2024, according to data provider Intercontinental Exchange , is also contributing to the incidence of fraud. For scammers, that equity, which can be unlocked by a sale of a home, a cash-out refinance or a second mortgage, is an opportunity to sell the property out from under you or to steal your identity to mortgage your house.
“If you bought a house and have a big mortgage, the chances of it being stolen from you are quite slim,” said Richard Howe, register of deeds of the Northern District of Middlesex County in Lowell, Mass. “The key for this is for the wrongdoers to get a loan against the property or sell it, and nobody’s going to buy a property or put a loan against it if there is a big mortgage on it.”
Petrescu said he’s also seeing a rising number of title theft cases involving investment properties owned by limited liability companies, where a partner who was recently kicked out of the LLC continues to act and executes documents trying to transfer the property when he’s no longer part of the company or authorised to sell it.
Still, the actual risk of losing your home to title theft is quite low. “There would have to be an extreme set of facts showing the owner was aware of the issue and took no action to correct it before that deed could be deemed as valid,” said Petrescu.
But there are ramifications nonetheless. If a homeowner discovers a fraudulent deed or mortgage while applying for a home-equity loan, for example, that could push the loan application back six months or more while title gets cleared, Petrescu said. And, if they are attempting to sell the property, a title company may not want to insure the property if there is a rogue deed recorded in the county records even if it is apparent that it wasn’t a valid transfer. “So, this has real consequences,” he said. “Even if someone is not going to lose title to their property, it could be a huge setback for them.”
Here are some things you can do to avoid becoming the victim of home-title theft.
Be alert to the early signs . After targeting a vulnerable property, a home-title thief will usually try to impersonate you using forged documents, such as a Social Security card or driver’s license. There are telltale signs that someone may be trying to steal your identity. Credit inquiries will show up on a credit report, so be sure to check your credit reports regularly or consider subscribing to one of the paid services that monitors credit on your behalf. You can also freeze your credit, which restricts access to your credit report. If you receive strange bills in the mail or phone calls from lenders you haven’t contacted, or if strangers start asking questions about who owns your vacant vacation home, those can also be signs that home-title theft may be under way.
Monitor your title . Many counties offer free title monitoring services that notify owners if a new document is recorded against their property. In the Northern District of Middlesex County in Lowell, Mass., owners can register up to three residential properties, according to Howe, who noted that in his 29-year career he has only seen one case of title fraud, in January 2024, and that involved a property that was vacant because the owners were deceased. Frano suggests setting up a free Google alert for your property address. That way, if a fraudster lists your property for sale, an alert may help you stop it before it happens.
Buy the right type of title insurance . While lenders require title policies to insure their own interests when a property is mortgaged, it is a good idea to also purchase an owner’s policy when you purchase a house. There are two different types of owners’ policies, and, unfortunately, they are similarly named, which can get confusing. A standard American Land Title Association (ALTA) Owner’s Policy provides coverage only for forgeries that took place before you purchased your home, such as fake deeds in the chain of title before your closing. But this type of policy won’t protect you against forgery occurring after your property purchase. For that, you may want to consider the more comprehensive Homeowner’s Policy of Title Insurance, which does cover forgeries occurring after your closing, according to Steve Gottheim, ALTA general counsel. That enhanced coverage, available in most states, comes at an additional cost, though, which varies based on the location and purchase price of your home. Either policy will cover you for losses you incur due to fraud or forgery, including attorney fees and expenses incurred to clear title, up to the policy limit, but only the Homeowner’s Policy will cover fraud after you purchase the home.
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What a quarter-million dollars gets you in the western capital.
Alexandre de Betak and his wife are focusing on their most personal project yet.
Unmarried home buyers say they are giving priority to a financial foundation over a legal one
4 min
The big wedding can wait. Couples are deciding they would rather take the plunge into homeownership.
In reshuffling the traditional order of adult milestones, some couples may decide not to marry at all, while others say they are willing to delay a wedding. Buying a home is as much, if not more of a commitment, they reason. It helps them build financial stability when the housing market is historically unaffordable.
In 2023, about 555,000 unmarried couples said that they had bought their home in the previous year, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Census Bureau data. That is up 46% from 10 years earlier, when just under 381,000 couples did the same.
Unmarried couples amounted to more than 11% of all U.S. home sales. The percentage has climbed steadily over the past two decades—a period in which marriage rates have fallen. These couples make up triple the share of the housing market that they did in the mid-1980s, according to the National Association of Realtors.
To make it work, couples must look past the significant risk that the relationship could blow up, or something could happen to one partner. Without a marriage certificate, living situations and finances are more likely to fall into limbo, attorneys say.
Mark White, 59 years old, and Sheila Davidson, 62, bought a lakeside townhouse together in Newport News, Va., in 2021. But only her name is on the deed. He sometimes worries about what would happen to the house if something happened to her. They have told their children that he should inherit the property, but don’t have formal documentation.
“We need to get him on the deed at some point,” Davidson said.
White and Davidson both had previous marriages, and decided they don’t want to do it again. They also believe tying the knot would affect their retirement benefits and tax brackets.
Couples that forgo or postpone marriage say they are giving priority to a financial foundation over a legal one. The median homeowner had nearly $400,000 in wealth in 2022, compared with roughly $10,000 for renters, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances.
Even couples that get married first are often focused on the house. Many engaged couples ask for down-payment help in lieu of traditional wedding gifts.
“A mortgage feels like a more concrete step toward their future together than a wedding,” said Emily Luk, co-founder of Plenty, a financial website for couples.
Elise Dixon and Nick Blue, both 29, watched last year as the Fed lifted rates, ostensibly pushing up the monthly costs on a mortgage. The couple, together for four years, decided to use $80,000 of their combined savings, including an unexpected inheritance she received from her grandfather, to buy a split-level condo in Washington, D.C.
“Buying a house is actually a bigger commitment than an engagement,” Dixon said.
They did that, too, getting engaged eight months after their April 2023 closing date. They are planning a small ceremony on the Maryland waterfront next year with around 75 guests, which they expect to cost less than they spent on the home’s down payment and closing costs.
The ages at which people buy homes and enter marriages have both been trending upward. The median age of first marriage for men is 30.2, and for women, 28.6, according to the Census Bureau. That is up from 29.3 and 27.0 a decade earlier. The National Association of Realtors reported this year that the median age of first-time buyers was 38, up from 31 in 2014.
Family lawyers—and parents—sometimes suggest protections in case the unmarried couple breaks up. A prenup-like cohabitation agreement spells out who keeps the house, and how to divide the financial obligations. Without the divorce process, a split can be even messier, legal advisers say.
Family law attorneys say more unmarried people are calling for legal advice, but often balk at planning for a potential split, along with the cost of drawing up such agreements, which can range from $1,000 to $3,000, according to attorney-matching service Legal Match.
Dixon, the Washington condo buyer, said she brushed off her mother’s suggestion that she draft an agreement with Blue detailing how much she invested, figuring that their mutual trust and equal contributions made it unnecessary. (They are planning to get a prenup when they wed, she said.)
There are a lot of questions couples don’t often think about, such as whether one owner has the option to buy the other out, and how quickly they need to identify a real-estate agent if they decide to sell, said Ryan Malet, a real-estate lawyer in the D.C. region.
The legal risks often don’t deter young home buyers.
Peyton Kolb, 26, and her fiancé figured that a 150-person wedding would cost $200,000 or more. Instead, they bought a three-bedroom near Tampa with a down payment of less than $50,000.
“We could spend it all on one day, or we could invest in something that would build equity and give us space to grow,” said Kolb, who works in new-home sales.
Owning a place where guests could sleep in an extra bedroom, instead of on the couch in their old rental, “really solidified us starting our lives together,” Kolb said. Their wedding is set for next May.
Homes and weddings have both gotten more expensive, but there are signs that home prices are rising faster. From 2019 to 2023, the median sales price for existing single-family homes rose by 44%, according to the National Association of Realtors. The average cost of a wedding increased 25% over that time, according to annual survey data from The Knot.
Roughly three quarters of couples move in together before marriage, and may already be considering the trade-offs between buying and renting. The cost of both has risen sharply over the past few years, but rent rises regularly while buying with a fixed-rate mortgage caps at least some of the costs.
An $800 rent hike prompted Sonali Prabhu and Ryan Willis, both 27, to look at buying. They were already paying $3,200 in monthly rent on their two-bedroom Austin, Texas, apartment, and felt they had outgrown it while working from home.
In October, they closed on a $425,000 three-bed, three-bath house. Their mortgage payment is $200 more than their rent would have been, but they have more space. They split the down payment and she paid about $50,000 for some renovations.
Her dad’s one request was that the house face east for good fortune, she said. Both parents are eagerly awaiting an engagement.
“We’re very solid right now,” said Prabhu, who plans to get married in 2026. “The marriage will come when it comes.”
