You’re gonna start hearing more about deed fraud and Pima County is offering a way to help homeowners stay on top of their property and help keep them protected. My name is Tom Heath, I’m a Vice President, Senior Loan Officer, and I run the Mortgage Guidance Group here at Nova Home Loans. I wanted to put on your radar something you’re gonna start hearing more about in the coming weeks and months. It’s called deed fraud, someone fraudulently putting themselves onto the deed of a property in order to sell, refinance, or otherwise benefit from the monetary aspect of the home. This is not new but we’re starting to see with the advancement of artificial intelligence and technology more ways for people to perpetrate this type of fraud and there are some steps underway to help control this. As being a member of the real estate community certainly it will affect us greatly.
Two things I want to make you aware of. One is that Pima County has something called Fraud Notify where any consumer, any homeowner, can go in and put their information into the system. They register and then they can opt in to receive notifications if information is filed using that name. There’s more information on the county recorder’s website and also wanted to let you know that in May there’s going to be a forum at the Tucson Association of Realtors that’s going to talk about this and have the experts in the field, including the assessors, the county recorders, members of the community that have been impacted, and other experts. One of the people leading this charge is a real estate agent here in Tucson named Lisa Nutt. That’s Nutt with two Ts. And she sat down with me to do a more in -depth recording of what her research has found, what we can expect to see in the near and in the long term, and I invite you to listen to that. That’s just, the link is over my shoulder and it’s available on our website.
Again, this is something definitely that we as real estate professionals wanna be informed about and then carry that message forward to our clients, homeowners and others in the community. If you have questions on this, please don’t hesitate to reach out. And if you’re out and about this weekend and you have questions about loan programs or if there’s concerns about interest rates, I know it’s been a crazy volatile week for interest rates, don’t hesitate to reach out, call Trevor, call me. We’d be glad to talk to you about what we know want to understand at this moment about the crazy market we’re in, and share anything that can help you. Have a great weekend. Talk to you soon.
