FRESNO COUNTY – The Fresno County Assessor-Recorder’s office is taking proactive measures to help property owners protect themselves against home title theft, also known as deed fraud.
During a presentation to the Selma City Council on Dec. 2, Fresno County Assessor-Recorder Paul Dictos introduced the Property Owners’ Protection Alert (POPA) service available to Fresno County homeowners free of charge. The service is intended to combat title fraud and unwarranted liens.
“At this point, as we speak, our district attorney is working on three property thefts, and we already caught two of them in the assessor’s office,” Dictos said.
Dictos said the Assessor-Recorder cannot prevent title theft crimes from happening, but the POPA service will immediately alert property owners of any documents filed with the county office containing the property owner’s name or the Assessor Parcel Number (APN) of their property. If the documents were not filed by the property owner, Dictos said they can then contact the Real Estate Fraud Unit within the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office to report the crime.
Fresno County is just one of four counties in California that offers this service, Dictos said. Otherwise, property alert notification services are available through third-parties but typically come at a high cost. LifeLock by Norton, for example, an identity theft protection service, costs nearly $240 for the first year of an annual “ultimate plus” subscription that includes home title protection and renews at a price of $339.99 annually, according to the LifeLock website.
To sign up for POPA, property owners can visit the Fresno County website and find the Property Owners’ Protection Alert page under the Recorder department. Steps to create a POPA account, activate it and subscribe to alerts are listed on the website. Dictos said individuals who need help signing up can visit the Assessor-Recorder’s office in person at 1250 Van Ness Ave. in Fresno.
“Now, if there is a shut-in that cannot even come out of the house, I will personally come up with my personal computer and help them sign up,” Dictos told the council. “My phone number is listed all over, … people are calling me sometimes at night; I don’t mind, I’m a public servant.”
Dictos said the only true protection against title theft is to have a specific type of insurance policy known as homeowner’s policy of title insurance, which differs from owner’s policy title of insurance that homeowners get when they buy a house.
Fresno County residents can contact the assessor’s office for information on POPA at 559-600-5317.
What is title theft?
Dictos explained that home title theft involves forging documents to record a fake transfer of property ownership. When someone then obtains the title to a property, they can sell the home, take out a mortgage on it or rent it out to tenants, Dictos said.
Deed fraud often involves forged Quitclaim deeds, which are typically used to easily transfer ownership between family members who are not actually purchasing a property, Dictos said.
“Twenty years ago, it wasn’t easy to forge documents. Today, every computer has the technology to create believable forgery because you can buy a fake notary stamp online,” Dictos said.
Somebody could then buy a fake notary stamp and duplicate the information of someone who is a legitimate notary public to forge the document. Because the Assessor-Recorder’s office does not verify the signatures of the seller and buyer on deeds, that duty is left up to a notary public, Dictos said.
The Assessor-Recorder’s office has checks and balances to verify the validity of the notary public’s name, identification number and license status with the California Secretary of State, Dictos said; however, if the deed includes forged information from a legitimate notary public, the Assessor-Recorder’s office may not catch that it is fraud. If a property owner suspects fraud, they can report it to the DA’s office.
According to the FBI’s 2023 Internet Crime Report, there were 9,521 complaints of real estate fraud in the United States last year, resulting in more than $145 million in losses; however, complaints were down from 11,727 in 2022 and 11,578 in 2021. The FBI’s report does not include specific information about home title theft, and defines real estate complaints as anything related to “loss of funds from a real estate investment or fraud involving rental or timeshare property.”
