Recently bought a house, checked the mail for the first time and found some mail addressed to a guy who I know has never lived at the property as the prior owner has lived there for the last 20 years. One piece of mail was from a mortgage company, the other an auto loan company. I was concerned so I opened the mail. Both were denied credit applications under my new address, but not my name. Assume the name was fake. It it not specify the property address they were using on the mortgage app, but I assume it was ours. This was a cash home purchase, and I dont believe we have a title insurance policy of our own as the seller had one to sell us the home. Something like this never crossed my mind.
What would be my next steps in this situation? I plan on calling the mortgage company and likely the auto loan company to explain the situation. I am worried some fraud is already is in the works. Is this likely address fraud, or something more?
What is this attempted property scam/ address scam on my recently purchased home and how to resolve?
byu/cpcxx2 inRealEstate
Posted by cpcxx2
12 Comments
What’s next is you going to jail for breaking the law. You can’t open someone else’s mail. Well you won’t go to jail but it’s a crime on what you did.
Freeze your credit report. Now.
Get a secure loc on the property, that’ll insure no one else can put a mortgage etc on it. You dont have to use the loc.
It seems that you’re the criminal in this scenario.
Eta: for the slow and ignorant downvoters. It’s a federal crime to intentionally open someone else’s mail. It’s punishable by up to 5 years in prison.
if you get mail in someone else’s name, I recommend “return to sender. that name not at this address”
Check county records for any leins against house and see if you county will set up alerts.
Pull your credit report
Freeze your credit
You may be able to go to your county assessor and ask for a fraud alert, letting you know if any changes are taking place. Your county clerk may also have a process to tell you if a mortgage gets recorded.
Open a line of credit on your house asap. This protects you from someone pretending to be the owner of your property and selling it. You don’t have to take anything against the house, but simply opening the line of credit and leaving the balance at 0 creates a lien, and that will protect you.
When you pay cash and have no liens against the property, it’s much easier for them because any title work that’s done doesn’t reveal any liens that require involvement of a third party, who would verify your identity.
It’s a very common scam on vacant land, but happens on mortgage free houses as well. I’ve had people call me and try to list land for sale that they did not own. It’s so common now that if the seller is out of state and there are no liens, I pay the county for online access to more info so I can make sure they own it before I ever send them a listing agreement.
Don’t open other people’s mail. It is a federal crime. Write “not at this address” on the envelope and put it with your outgoing mail.
I’m not a realtor, so someone correct me if I’m wrong, but typically the seller buys title insurance at closing to make sure they’re providing clear title. You are the one protected in this scenario, so you do have title insurance.
You should definitely freeze your credit. It’s possible the person is real and the address was incorrect. It’s also possible it’s a scam and someone is hoping you’ll call these companies to prove you’re the new owner by giving them all kinds of personal information.
FYI, title insurance protects the buyer, not a seller. And a standard title insurance policy only guarantees you that the title is clear and covered as of the time of purchase. If someone later fraudulently takes out a loan on the property, it’s not covered unless the title insurance specifically includes that. Some may offer it as an option. The normal title insurance is the title company having researched the title, found it to be clear with no liens and then guaranteeing it to be so at the time of sale and if anyone later shows up claiming that they had a claim on the property at the time of sale, then the title company will protect you.
Call a title company and purchase a owner policy
First this is not something that title insurance would cover. It covers defects on the title as of the day you bought the insurance, and yes you can still go buy it.
On a cash sell the seller doesn’t have to provide title insurance, that is up to the purchaser.
I suspect that these are random mailings that have nothing to do with you, but if you are concerned get something like LifeLock to keep an eye on things. Also freeze all three of your credit reports.