Property Deed Fraud, 7th March, 2024.

Property Deed Fraud is growing in Florida and state and county officers are urging property owners to protect themselves. There’s been a big spike in this type if fraud here in Florida because interest in real estate in the Sunshine State is growing and so popular that fraudulent activity has increased alongside. You may have seen or heard in recent news articles that vacant land is particularly susceptible to this cheating, but it’s not exclusive to that type of property. Over half Florida’s real estate agents directly experienced this in their business in the second half of 2023. It happens when a fraudster steals an owner’s identity to obtain title and then sells the property without the owner’s knowledge – and once gone, it could be a serious blow to the pocket book and extraordinarily difficult to reverse – if at all. You can protect yourself to some extent by signing up to Charlotte County’s property fraud alert programme, which sends out emails and texts if there’s activity on property you own that is detected at county level. It’s an early warning system rather than a guarantee. All of Florida’s 67 counties have some sort of property fraud alert programme. For more information and to sign up in Charlotte County, click here.

A big thank you to Florida Realtors® for bringing this offering to my attention.