New alert system designed to protect property owners

The Oglethorpe County Superior Court Clerk’s office is promoting a new system to help protect local property owners from deed theft — a system even the clerk is using herself. 

“I think that anyone in our county should use this, and if they want any more information, I have our fliers here, and I’d be glad to talk to anybody about it to let them know that I actually am doing it,” Kelli Paradise Smith said. 

Often called home title theft, deed theft happens when someone steals a homeowner’s personal information and uses it to transfer a home’s title into their own name. They may then try to resell or rent the property without the homeowner’s knowledge.

Just this month in Athens, a businessman had his $1 million home bought for $10 by a fraudulent quitclaim deed.

The Filing Activity Notification System (FANS), is a free, voluntary, opt-in program residents can use to receive electronic notifications any time filings are made related to their property and records. The service is being offered by Smith and her office in conjunction with the Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority.

Smith said residents come to the clerk’s office with questions concerning filings made under their name, but FANS “is a way that they can check and make sure that has not happened, and if it does, they will be automatically notified.”

Home and property owners can register for FANS at fans.gsccca.org using an email address or phone number. The system allows them to register their name in any variation it could be spelled or perceived, including initials and nicknames.

Any time a filing is made under a registered user’s name, the Clerks Authority will send an email or text notification to let them know about the filing and where it took place.

The service was born out of a collaboration of superior court clerks. Smith said they all found themselves, “sharing a real concern about our constituents worrying about somebody filing paperwork to put their name on their property or their title to their land.”

Although property fraud hasn’t been a common crime in Oglethorpe County during her 15 years with the county, Smith said there are other scams aimed at property owners.

“They try to scare the senior population of our county, telling them that people can just come in and take their land,” she said. “I try to assure people that their land is secure.”

Lexington attorney Dennis Peter Helmreich, who specializes in real estate law and personal injury, said he thinks FANS can guard against fraud, since anyone can access property information in the public record.

“They can access the tax assessor's website to get this information,” Helmreich said. “They could go to the clerk's office and look up the deed and plat, or they could buy a membership to the Clerks Authority and access that information themselves. They could download these documents electronically; you have to pay a fee, though, to access it every month.” 

As a result, he said anyone could forge the tax transfer form sent to the clerk’s office. 

Helmreich says FANS is a good program to prevent deed theft because it triggers the clerk’s office to reach out to the true property owner.

“And if they were a victim of fraud, that would alert them to dig into it and see what happened,” he said.