Greg's Corner

Deed scam tries to scare homeowners

By Greg Collier

Homeowners in the Nashville, Tennessee area have been receiving some disturbing letters in the mail recently. Just imagine receiving a letter in the mail that says the deed to your property has been transferred to someone else and the transfer has been recorded with your county’s deeds office. Thankfully, the letters are part of a scam, but they’re designed to get the homeowner to panic.

The letters appear to come from the local County Register of Deeds office. They go on to state the homeowner can obtain a copy of the supposed new deed by paying a fee to a supposed service in Florida. So, not only are the scammers hoping on getting an $89 payment from their victims, but if a victim pays by debit or credit card, the scammers will have their financial information as well.

This scam preys on the fear of another scam where people have lost ownership of their own homes. Previously, some homeowners have been tricked into signing over the deed to their homes to a scammer. The scammer tells them they can avoid being foreclosed on if they sign the deed over to a third party. This typically results in the homeowner being evicted from their home by the scammers.

In a similar scam, scammers have sent phony tax forms to homeowners asking them to fill the forms out. The scammers then use the information taken from these forms to try to get the deed reassigned to the scammer.

If you receive a letter like this, the first thing you should do is contact your county deeds office to see if there is any legitimacy to the letter. In some counties, including Tennessee’s Davidson County, where you can sign up for property alerts. This way you can be notified if any action is being taken against your property.