Do you need title theft insurance?

Bob: I've seen all these commercials on TV for this, "Title protection," or "Don't get your title stolen or anything." Just some advice, is this something everybody should take seriously or is this something that is--?

Attorney Tom Olsen: Bob, thank you for your call. Let's pop Bob down. Bob, if you continue to listen, we appreciate it. Bob, as far as the title theft insurance that you see so heavily advertised on TV-- you see it too, Holley?

Attorney Holley Knapik: Absolutely, and on the radio all the time.

Tom: It would make you think, “Oh my God, I cannot live without this. Oh my God. Listen to these people talk about how they woke up one day and they don't own their home anymore?”

Holley: Yes.

Tom: Guess what? Folks are trying to sell you something.

Holley: They are.

Tom: They might [crosstalk]-

Holley: Fear to sell.

Tom: Advertisement is not going to be, “Oh, maybe you need this, maybe you don't. Maybe [unintelligible 00:00:52].” No. They're going to give you worst-case scenarios, and that might be one in a million people that it happened to.

Bob, here's what I want to tell you. In our experience, Bob, there is only one kind of real estate that is at risk here. It is a very limited scenario. That scenario is limited to this -- vacant, meaning there's no building on it, or residential, meaning you build a home on it, not an office building, buildable lots, vacant residential buildable lots.

If you own a vacant residential buildable lot that's not next to your house, it's on the other side of town, another city, another state, yes, you may want to think about getting theft insurance because that's where we see the theft happening.

Holley: Absolutely, that is where it has occurred.

Tom: Now, if you get that theft insurance, and I want you to make sure that number one, that first of all, if they just say, "Hey, Bob, we're going to notify you if somebody steals your title," hey, thanks for nothing.

Holley: Exactly, because then it's too late.

Tom: Too late. We want that title theft insurance to either pay you the value of that lot, or even better, pay the attorney's fees to get that lot back for you. If they say, "Bob, if they steal your lot, we're going to pay you the value of it," and in the case that we dealt with so far, they don't want the money. They want their lot back.

Holley: They want their land back.

Tom: Exactly. Bob, just be wary about that and make sure you get what you think you're getting, and that is they're going to ideally get you your lot back.

Holley: Yes. This question comes up a lot now because of the heavy advertising. One thing that's really good, if you live in central Florida, Orange County, Seminole County, each county's taken a proactive approach to this. You can visit the-- I know for Orange County, it's the Orange County Comptroller's website, and they have a button on their home screen and it says, "Title fraud alert."

You literally can just click that button, put in a little bit of pertinent identification information. What happens is when an instrument is about to be recorded that may match your legal description or your personal ID, you'll get notification via text, email to let you know something's going on here.

Tom: I want to say that we are not a litigation law firm here at Olsen Law Group, but we've had two existing, I'm going to call them little old lady clients that were just devastated that their vacant residential buildable lot was stolen from them. In both of those cases, we were successful in getting their lot back.

Now, in the old days, I would've said, rarely does this happen because, well, first of all, to sign a deed requires that there be two witnesses and a notary. Anybody can scribble a name as a witness, but a notary, I said, you'd have to go find a crooked, dishonest notary to notarize that deed for you. What notary's going to be dishonest like that?

Well, what really happened is that the thieves, the crooks, they found out a legitimate notary, they rode off to the notary supply store, got a stamp with her name on it, then scribbled her name and put a notary seal on a deed, and it looks like it is a real notary. That's a real person, that's a real notary, but that's not really that person's signature. That was, I go, gosh, people are working very hard out there to steal our money.

Holley: Very hard. Indeed, very hard.

Tom: It's gotten frustrating and disappointing about how we, as the average people out there, have to worry about people trying to steal things from us.

Holley: All the time. All the time.

Tom: Yes, bank accounts and everything else. Bob, I think that answers your question for you. Now, I'm going to say, Bob, let me tell you why if you said, "Tom, all I own is a home I live in. Do I need to worry about this?" The answer is no because if somebody was trying to sell your home, you would see survey flags. You'd have home inspectors knocking on your door. Most people have a mortgage on your home, so they'd have to get that payoff information, so your home is not at risk.

Holley: Exactly. It's the vacant lot.

Tom: Bob, I hope that answers your question for you. Chrissy, in the last break, pointed out to me -- we were talking about the same thing. She goes, "Tom, we--" and I'm going to do this, "I'm going to contact the theft Insurance company, I'm going to give them my home phone landline, my junk phone because I'm sure it's going to be getting tons of phone calls from them, I want to see what the contract reads, what [crosstalk]--

Holley: Yes, what does it actually offering?

Tom: If I pay them X amount of dollars per month, what are they giving me in return? I want to know because as many times as I talked about this, I've never actually seen this title theft insurance policy.

Holley: Title theft insurance policy, yes.

Tom: I'm going to do that, Holley. I'll report back.

Holley: That'll be great.

Tom: I'm interested in the whole thing. I'm interested in seeing what that form says now.

[00:06:06] [END OF AUDIO]