{"id":4184,"date":"2021-03-18T18:10:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-18T18:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barlensogt.barlen.com\/?p=4184"},"modified":"2026-07-21T00:03:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T00:03:32","slug":"title-theft-myth-persists-but-mongers-of-protection-against-it-have-slightly-improved-their-mislabeled-product","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barlensogat.tempserver4.org\/?p=4184","title":{"rendered":"\u201cTitle theft\u201d myth persists, but mongers of \u201cprotection\u201d against it have slightly improved their mislabeled product"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u201cTitle theft\u201d myth persists, but mongers of \u201cprotection\u201d against it have slightly improved their mislabeled product<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By: SBN Staff <\/a>| 2:10pm EDT March 15, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two years ago, William Maffucci, a real-estate lawyer with\u00a0Semanoff Ormsby Greenberg & Torchia, LLC,<\/a>\u00a0exposed on these pages the myth of \u201ctitle theft\u201d \u2014 i.e., the concept that a criminal could \u201csteal\u201d a house by simply forging the owner\u2019s name on a deed, then \u201cdrain the equity\u201d in the house by defrauding a mortgage lender into loaning money against the house, and thus force the actual owner to repay the loan or lose the home through foreclosure\u00a0[Read the original article here].<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, other commentators have joined Maffucci in debunking the myth of \u201ctitle theft.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smart Business spoke with Maffucci to find out how \u2014 if at all \u2014 the providers of \u201ctitle lock\u201d protection have reacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do services providing \u201ctitle lock\u201d protection still claim that \u201ctitle theft\u201d is real?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes. The industry has grown over the past two years, and the false advertising seems to have intensified. This is baffling, because the legal principles are not in dispute. Surely companies with multi-million-dollar yearly advertising budgets can afford lawyers to screen out the misrepresentations with which advertisements about \u201ctitle theft\u201d are replete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the advertisements are as bad as ever, the chorus of complaints about them has resulted in a subtle but important change. It\u2019s not reflected in the video or radio ads, but you can sometimes spot it in the written advertisements: Under some circumstances, the \u2018title lock\u2019 services will pay for the legal fees necessary to clear title if, after purchasing a subscription, the subscriber\u2019s title is forged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two years ago the leading provider of \u2018title lock\u2019 services did not cover the legal fees necessary to clear title of a forgery that occurred to a subscriber. The service would record a statement to warn third parties about relying upon the forged title, and it would take a few other actions to try to prevent the forger from compounding the owner\u2019s problems. But the subscriber would still have to find and pay for a lawyer to clean up the title. Now, it seems, all of the \u2018title lock\u2019 providers will cover a subscriber\u2019s legal fees \u2014 at least if the subscriber purchases a long-term plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If \u201ctitle theft\u201d is a myth, how difficult could it be for a lawyer to clear the title?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes very difficult. And often prohibitively expensive. The lawyer must first locate and confirm the identity of the forger, who may or may not be the named grantee. After drafting the complaint, the lawyer must find a way to serve the defendant(s). Forgers and their accomplices have many ways to frustrate those steps, so a lawyer must often seek court permission to accomplish them through alternative procedures. And proving that a signature has been forged isn\u2019t easy. It usually requires retaining a forensic handwriting analyst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does the possibility of having legal fees covered warrant the expense of a \u201ctitle lock\u201d subscription?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legal-fee coverage would certainly change the cost-benefit calculus. Without it, the service is little more than a glorified title-monitoring service. But note: Some homeowners already have insurance against title forgery, and most of them don\u2019t even know it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This highlights yet another misrepresentation in the \u2018title lock\u2019 advertisements: that traditional title insurance \u2014 i.e., the insurance that homeowners obtain by paying a one-time premium when they buy their homes \u2014 never protects them from subsequent forgeries. That statement was true historically, because for most of its history title insurance covered only title defects that were in place as of the time of the closing. And it\u2019s still true for owners who acquire the traditional, basic form of title insurance. Now, however, in most states, homeowners have the option of buying an \u2018enhanced\u2019 policy of homeowners\u2019 insurance that protects them from many specified post-closing events. Forgery is one of them. And the coverage would include the expense of the insured\u2019s legal coverage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the \u2018enhanced\u2019 homeowners\u2019 policy is more expensive, it\u2019s part of the one-time, up-front premium. And it largely precludes the need for the services that \u2018title lock\u2019 advertisers provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Download Article PDF<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cTitle theft\u201d myth persists, but mongers of \u201cprotection\u201d against it have slightly improved their mislabeled product By: SBN Staff | 2:10pm EDT March 15, 2021 Two years ago, William Maffucci, a real-estate lawyer with\u00a0Semanoff Ormsby Greenberg & Torchia, LLC,\u00a0exposed on these pages the myth of \u201ctitle theft\u201d \u2014 i.e., the concept that a criminal could \u201csteal\u201d a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insights"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barlensogat.tempserver4.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barlensogat.tempserver4.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barlensogat.tempserver4.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barlensogat.tempserver4.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barlensogat.tempserver4.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4184"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/barlensogat.tempserver4.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9281,"href":"https:\/\/barlensogat.tempserver4.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4184\/revisions\/9281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barlensogat.tempserver4.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barlensogat.tempserver4.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barlensogat.tempserver4.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}