Boy, I need a job. I was watching the news this morning and that ubiquitous "home title lock" commercial came on and was telling you how someone can steal your house from you. In it, there's this so-called county clerk guy saying basically yeah, if the paperwork is notarized, they have to accept it by law and can't give it back to them saying it's fraudulent. They must accept it and you'll lose your house, yadda yadda. There are other methods in place to ensure fraudsters don't get their day in the sun. Most of the time when people get into issues is that they themselves have signed something they shouldn't have, or in some way had input into the equation. Successful home title theft is rare. The notary must at least verify the IDs of the people involved. So if they don't do that, that's a notary issue. Also, if the fraudsters try to get a loan on the property, tax records and pay stubs and all sorts of stuff are required to jump through all the hoops to get the loan. Even if they did, fraud. Thus you're not responsible. The bank will be out unless the bank giving the fraudster a mortgage loan required title insurance too, so, technically, you couldn't get stuck with any loan under fraudulent circumstances, as the title insurance company would be on the hook and they'd have to track down the scammer.
So I did some research on it and the home title lock is essentially useless. All they do is monitor your county records online and if they see that there's been activity on your property records they'll notify you. Problem is, that doesn't stop it if it should happen. They do exactly what you can do yourself for free. And that's check your property records. Records usually take a few days to a few weeks to update, meaning that if you had some fraudster trying some bullcrap on you, the damage, if any, is already done and home title lock products aren't going to help. And then there's the proof factor that you did indeed, sell your property. Around here, they went to digital deeds around 2009 or 2010, something like that. We have our physical paper deed in our possession for both properties since we had purchased before then.
Forged documents are a crime in the U.S., so forged documents means any transaction using those documents is null and void. If a third party tries to boot you out of the home, they were feeding off the fruit of the poison tree, and also have no legal standing. And if they did it under a quit claim, they're the ones on the hook anyway, not you, since it's not a warranty deed. While the worst is that you may get stuck with an attorney bill for fixing a screwed up title issues after something like this happen, home title lock does not cover those fees, anyway. They say they do now, but I'm sure they have some strict rules to be able to use it. If you had enhanced title insurance when you bought your home, it might already be covered, so then you really wouldn't need home title lock. Which begs the question- is it worth it? It's something like 20 bucks/month or 199 per year to pay someone to basically periodically check your county records. Hmmm. It pays to check online every now and then with your county records place just to make sure.
If you don't have protective measures on your credit ratings, or other things in place to safeguard personal financial information, that's on you. There's a lot of things you can do for free. Like put a freeze and fraud alerts on your credit, and also you can do it for your real property.
And just for fun, I opened up a pandora's box when I decided to find out if this "David Hooten, County Clerk" guy in the commercial actually existed or was he just an actor? He does exist. But it was quite an eye-opener as to his credibility? Do a search with Home Title Lock commercial and David Hooten together yielded no results that I could find. I'm sure they've supressed that, too.
Try not to be shocked as to the reason he resigned. Yikes!
en.wikipedia.org
So I did some research on it and the home title lock is essentially useless. All they do is monitor your county records online and if they see that there's been activity on your property records they'll notify you. Problem is, that doesn't stop it if it should happen. They do exactly what you can do yourself for free. And that's check your property records. Records usually take a few days to a few weeks to update, meaning that if you had some fraudster trying some bullcrap on you, the damage, if any, is already done and home title lock products aren't going to help. And then there's the proof factor that you did indeed, sell your property. Around here, they went to digital deeds around 2009 or 2010, something like that. We have our physical paper deed in our possession for both properties since we had purchased before then.
Forged documents are a crime in the U.S., so forged documents means any transaction using those documents is null and void. If a third party tries to boot you out of the home, they were feeding off the fruit of the poison tree, and also have no legal standing. And if they did it under a quit claim, they're the ones on the hook anyway, not you, since it's not a warranty deed. While the worst is that you may get stuck with an attorney bill for fixing a screwed up title issues after something like this happen, home title lock does not cover those fees, anyway. They say they do now, but I'm sure they have some strict rules to be able to use it. If you had enhanced title insurance when you bought your home, it might already be covered, so then you really wouldn't need home title lock. Which begs the question- is it worth it? It's something like 20 bucks/month or 199 per year to pay someone to basically periodically check your county records. Hmmm. It pays to check online every now and then with your county records place just to make sure.
If you don't have protective measures on your credit ratings, or other things in place to safeguard personal financial information, that's on you. There's a lot of things you can do for free. Like put a freeze and fraud alerts on your credit, and also you can do it for your real property.
And just for fun, I opened up a pandora's box when I decided to find out if this "David Hooten, County Clerk" guy in the commercial actually existed or was he just an actor? He does exist. But it was quite an eye-opener as to his credibility? Do a search with Home Title Lock commercial and David Hooten together yielded no results that I could find. I'm sure they've supressed that, too.
Try not to be shocked as to the reason he resigned. Yikes!
David B. Hooten - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Oklahoma County Clerk David Hooten resigns, vows to continue run for state treasurer
The resignation came as commissioners were set to vote Tuesday to allow District Attorney David Prater to file a petition to remove Hooten from office.
www.oklahoman.com
