Digital Transactions in Real Estate Marketing

Identity theft and tax fraud have been leading white-collar crimes for over a decade. Emerging trends have seen the rise in white-collar crime to now include deed theft. This type of theft marries identity theft and mortgage fraud, and it is robbing the hopes of many people who aspire to own a home. This whitepaper identifies how deed theft takes place through targeting homes with deceased owners, house flipping fraud and fake forensic auditors. It explores this evolved white-collar crime and its dangerous effects, while also revealing the best ways to mitigate the risk of deed theft. Furthermore, this paper provides the background of the crime and how the crime correlates with identify theft. Gaining control of this issue is challenging due to the existing infrastructure that was introduced in 1920. This leaves few country clerks with any response to the issue surrounding identity theft and mortgage fraud. To mitigate this challenge, devices have been developed to track the behaviour of people to ensure that their residences are not ‘stolen’. Although these solutions are available, few individuals learn about deed theft so that the solutions can be used to protect themselves against it. This whitepaper presents DeedLock as the most effective solution to address the looming challenge of property theft.