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Home Loans And Mortgages – Beware Of Deed Theft Scam
By: Charles Essmeier
The average home in the United States has a value of $206,000, a record amount.
Real estate prices have been rising throughout the country during the last five
years, and homeowners have seen the value of their property skyrocket. In
California alone, the equity in private homes has increased by more than one
trillion dollars in the last five years alone. Many homeowners do not even
realize that their home may be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars more than
they know. Unfortunately for them, a new breed of thieves is well aware of the
value of home equity, and a scam known as “deed theft” has allowed them to steal
homes from thousands of people.
Deed theft is simple in principle. The perpetrators of deed theft post flyers
around town offering “foreclosure help.” They seek homeowners with mortgages who
may be experiencing some temporary financial setback that threatens them with
foreclosure. It’s not uncommon for people who have been living in their homes
for years to have a sudden financial emergency that prevents them from making
their house payments. Perhaps a job loss or illness is to blame. The economic
downturn of the last five years has left a lot of people struggling to pay their
bills, and these are the people that the deed thieves seek. Their flyers promise
to help those in danger of having their homes taken through foreclosure. The
thieves meet with the homeowners and ask to have the title to the home
transferred to them. In exchange, the “rescuer” will promise to pay the
delinquent bills and rent the home to the victim for a year or so at a fair
price. During this time, they say, the homeowner can save their money or pay off
other bills. At the end of that year, the victim can buy the house back from the
“rescuer.”
This seems like a friendly gesture, except that the “rescuer” has no intention
of selling the home back to the victim. Once the title is signed over to them,
they legally own the home. They may evict the victim, sell the home, or borrow
against it, and there is little recourse for the victim, who is now nothing more
than a squatter. Many of these victims fail to realize that they may have had
hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity in their home or that their mortgage
company may have been willing to either refinance their home or assist them in
some other way with making their payments.
This scam is currently popular across the country and homeowners could easily
avoid being victimized by simply calling their mortgage company at the first
sign of financial struggle. Mortgage companies aren’t really interested in
foreclosure; they’d much rather get paid if at all possible. Before accepting
the “help” of strangers who post signs on streetcorners, homeowners should start
by asking help from those with whom they are already doing business. Doing so
could not only save the homeowner money, it could save the homeowner’s house.
About the Author:
©Copyright 2005 by Retro Marketing. Charles Essmeier is the owner of Retro Marketing, a firm devoted to informational Websites, including http://www.End-Your-Debt.com, a Website devoted to debt consolidation
information and http://www.HomeEquityHelp.net, a site devoted to information on
home equity loans. |
