Protect yourself from real estate scams with this free Property Watch Service.
Property and Mortgage Fraud – It can happen to you! This is Paul Wheeler from Senné Real Estate in North Conway, NH and even here in the beautiful Mount Washington Valley and Lakes Region of New Hampshire, property fraud is happening. The good news is that there is a free way to protect the real estate assets you have worked so hard to accumulate.
In the last two weeks, I have been contacted by people claiming to own property in the local area that they would like to sell. In both cases, it has been vacant parcels of land the caller claims they purchased years ago and have decided to sell rather than develop. They provide the address, their (your) name, and a phone number, preferring you text them to talk about listing their property as soon as possible. It all sounds legitimate until, as an agent, I start to dig a little deeper and find inconsistencies that make me doubt I am truly talking with the owner of record and start to believe it’s a scam. What the scammer hopes to accomplish is to have me list the property, find a buyer, and then fraudulently convey ownership to the buyer and they disappear with the proceeds from the sale. If this occurs, no one wins but the scammer. The seller is out the time and money it takes to prove a fraudulent conveyance, the buyer is out the money they paid for the property and both the title company and agent(s), their time, and reputation. It's sad, but we now live in an age where you have to be on guard all the time to protect yourself and your family from these situations.
The good news is our Registrar of Deeds for Carroll County, Lisa Scott, provides us all with a state-of-the-art, free Property Watch Service. This service will provide a warning to all property owners of any document recordings that occur at the Carroll County Registry of Deeds under your name. It’s simple to register, free to use, and something I recommend to all my clients to sign up for. It only takes a few minutes and is very easy to do.
Here is how it works:
- Go to the Registry’s website: carrollcountynhdeeds.gov
- On the left side of the main page, scroll down below the block that reads INFORMATION to the block that reads RESOURCES. Scroll just below that and click on PROPERTY WATCH.
- From there simply follow the easy directions beginning with adding in your email address, then clicking on “add name for alert”, and then hit submit. That’s all there is to it!
- From this point forward, you will receive an alert if a document is recorded with your name.
Here is a link directly to the property watch page with more information: PROPERTY WATCH SERVICE
If you have any questions or need help signing up, just give me a call at 603-801-4149 and I will walk you through the signup process.
Author Paul Wheeler, Senné Real Estate