Fake liens against real estate

Yes,, there are people out there who place fake liens against real estate by recording it in the public records. Often, title companies will ignore these fake liens.

Lou: I know you can freeze your credit so nobody can just randomly pull your credit. My question is, how about real estate or your home, can you protect that from somebody just slapping a lien on it without you inadvertently knowing it?

Attorney Tom Olsen: Okay. Lou the answer is no. When we talk about putting a lien against a piece of property we are talking about somebody recording something in the public records, where your piece of property is located. There's nothing you can do to stop somebody from recording something whether it's bogus or real in the public records. Now that reminds me a few years ago. Christie I don't know if you remember this but there was a gentleman who was very upset with the court system here in central Florida. He was typing up what looked to be very official liens, two or three pages, neatly typed, you'd think they're absolutely real. He'd be naming individual judges in these liens and filing them in the public records. One time we did a closing where one of these judges was a seller of this and it looks very real like a judgment lien and the title company agreed that we could ignore it. We understood it was a false document. Jim that'd be the answer to the question there but when you go to sell your home or any other property they're going to do a title search and they're going to pick up what liens are there. If there is something bogus and a lot of times the title companies will simply ignore it. Thank you Lou.