Six court clerks in Northeast Florida are joining forces to urge property owners in Baker, Clay, Duval, Nassau, Putnam and St. Johns counties to protect themselves against scammers who could attempt to steal their homes, vacant land or business property through fraudulent deeds or other official records.
Duval County Clerk of Courts Jody Phillips, along with his counterparts in the other five counties, announced a shared website Oct. 24 to detect potential fraud.
“Property fraud alerts give individuals and businesses the tools they need to proactively monitor recorded documents and stop property fraud at its very source,” Phillips said in a news release.
Since the service began in Duval County in June, more than 9,200 property owners registered for the notifications as of Oct. 24.
The key element of the partnership is a shared webpage that provides property fraud protection for all six counties.
“Northeast Florida Clerks are united to fight property fraud across the region, as criminals don’t stop at the county line,” St. Johns County Clerk Brandon Patty said.
“Through our first-ever regional partnership and shared webpage, ProtectYourFloridaProperty.com and ClerksAgainstFraud.com, we offer quick links to each of our six counties’ sign-up pages. It couldn’t be any easier for residents to subscribe and protect themselves against con artists and scammers who would steal their homes, land and commercial properties.”
Property fraud is when someone illegally uses someone else’s property for financial gain. For example, a scammer creates a fraudulent document and deeds a home to them and then records that document in official county records.
Property owners can discover when ownership of their home or business has been modified if they are notified that a change has occurred.
“We ask property owners to partner with us, as we work to eliminate the attempts to steal homes and land,” said Clay County Clerk Tara Green.
“Bad actors might get away with a fraudulent filing, but an alert sent to a registered property owner will quickly follow that allows the property owner to intervene.”
To combat the nationwide rise in property and mortgage fraud, identity protection companies charge monthly or annual fees to monitor official records. The new, free regional service allows property owners to receive alerts when an official record document is recorded in their name in the county where they are subscribed.
Like paid commercial alert systems, the free noticing service does not prevent a fraudulent action from occurring. As a county’s recorder of deeds and mortgages, clerks of court document property records but are not authorized to determine the validity of the record.
The free notification service provides an early warning system for subscribers, giving them a tool to become aware of fraudulent activity that may have otherwise gone undetected. Once notified, a property owner can contact law enforcement, seek legal advice or file a case in civil court.
Visit ProtectYourFloridaProperty.com or ClerksAgainstFraud.com, to sign up for the service in each of the participating counties.