Florida launches new real estate fraud alert system to protect homeowners

PENSACOLA, Fla. – New regulations are taking effect in Florida this year to help protect homeowners from fraud.

District courts must create a register of property owners by July 1.

Once you are in this database, you will be notified when someone attempts to file a deed for your property.

This follows incidents across the country where criminals sold another person’s home simply by submitting the relevant paperwork.

The pilot program began in 2023, and by the end of last year, all but three Florida counties offered the system.

This includes all of our court reporters from Escambia to Walton County.

In less than a month, the state of Florida will require county officials to implement a fraud alert service for homeowners. Whenever something is entered in official records in your name, residents will receive a notification in the system.

Heather Mahoney, director of Escambia County’s records department, says the problem is spreading across the country as more states consider adopting this protection measure.

• WEAR NEWS: “People forge signatures to transfer a property into someone else’s name so they can either sell the property or take out financing in someone else’s name? Is it that easy?”
• MAHONEY: “It’s getting easier and easier, in the electronic world we live in, it’s getting easier and easier. They use fraudulent notaries, signatures and things like that.”

WEAR News has been told that a prime example is when someone forges your signature, obtains your title and sells your property without you knowing until it’s too late.

Although it’s rare, Mahoney says it has happened before in our area and the risk is increasing.

“There have been a few cases here,” Mahoney said. “It doesn’t seem like we’ve had a lot of cases here in our area in South Florida, it’s definitely a growing problem, I would say it’s a big problem for victims.”

Although the program cannot prevent fraudulent activity, the alert system will notify you within 24 hours. If someone tries to forge your signature and steal your property, you will be warned so you can get ahead of the problem.

There is no requirement for residents to log into the system, but court clerks say demand for registration is growing.

“Right now we have about 900 registered people monitoring 1,100 names,” Mahoney said. “I think that’s extremely important because anyone who owns property is at risk, and that risk is constantly increasing.”

WEAR News has reached out to the clerks of courts in surrounding counties. We are waiting to hear how many property owners have filed in Northwest Florida.

Homeowners can register as many names as they want for free on the county website.

You can register in any county where you own property. Here is a link for each of our counties: