GASTON COUNTY, N.C. — Action 9 attorney Jason Stoogenke has warned you about criminals switching your home into their name or trying to sell it behind your back.
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Many counties offer a free service to combat this. You can sign up for alerts if anyone changes any paperwork involving your property.
Gaston County is now going further. Register of Deeds Jonathan L. Fletcher teamed up with a company called ‘EquityProtect’ to give homeowners in that county more protection. Two options:
- The company will keep an eye on real estate sales and rental sites for anything suspicious involving your address. This is free.
- The company requires multi-factor authentication before anyone can sell or refinance your property and insures your property against fraud up to $1 million, among other services. This is $150 per year plus a $50 setup fee.
“These fraudsters aren’t trying to take your property. They’re trying to profit off of you. They’re trying to do a fraudulent sale to get money from somebody else in your name or they’re trying to take out a loan in your name. They don’t actually care about taking the property. They’re just trying to get the money out of it,” Fletcher said.
He says Gaston is the first county in the state to go this route.
Interested? www.GastonGov.com/PropertyFraud or call the Register of Deeds at 704-862-7680.