End Deed Fraud! Florida Tests ID Rule, California Requires Alerts

Real estate prices keep rising. A home title is increasingly valuable. For people who specialize in deed fraud, deed records might as well be pots of gold. These smooth operators are on the lookout for properties they can control, sell, or use to obtain loan or rent money.

What happened to the days when a notarized document was recorded—no questions asked?

Traditionally, county deed recorders did not check into the bona fides of the person filing a deed. As long as a filing is legible and meets the standards for notarization, format and, content, the county recorder is supposed to enter it into the public records. For generations, county officials haven’t questioned the identity of those who file legal documents.

This is changing.

Recording Your Deed in Fort Myers? The Clerk Wants to See Your ID

Kevin Karnes is the Clerk of Lee County, Florida. This Gulf coast county is home to Fort Myers, Cape Coral, and other well-known Florida towns. Here, as in most other places, scammers of all types have become increasingly handy with software and data. Document falsification has reached new levels over the past few years. 

By 2022, Kevin Karnes, together with Florida State Representative Will Robinson, had put their heads together to address the problem. How could impersonators be stopped from coming into county offices and taking the deeds out from under rightful owners? Seniors who’d worked their whole lives to buy retirement homes or pay off mortgages were core targets. Lawmakers had to step in.

So, Lee County created a plan. Its test run started in the summer of 2023, and went through June 2025. During that time, everyone who brought a deed (home, trust, or commercial) to the Lee County Clerk’s Office was asked for a government photo ID before filing a change in the public records. All the while, the county took notes.

During the course of the two-year test period, Lee County found:

• Out of 95,000 deeds filed in the county, four were brought improperly. As Kevin Karnes said, even one attempted deed theft is too many.

• The four improper filing attempts led to two civil cases, and two criminal cases. The new verification process informed the investigations that followed.

Savvy title pirates consider county deed records a treasure chest. Once they can steal the deed holder’s identity, they can fake a deed transfer. With a forged deed, a swindler can sell or extract value from the victim’s real estate. People have lost their titles, been evicted from their homes, or been left responsible for mortgages while fighting in court to recover their homes.

But in Lee County, ID verification is making things harder for the con artists.   

Will Florida Deed Recorders Adopt ID Verification for Good?

By the end of 2025, Lee County had prepared an 18-page report on the test run, and the clerk’s recommendations. Now, the report’s being considered by state lawmakers.

Karnes, the Lee County Clerk, believes ID verification is one of several tactics that can thwart deed fraud. Karnes supports the idea of bringing the new ID verification protocol to deed recorders’ offices in every Florida county.

Will this make sense to the legislature as a whole? Lee County is just one of 67 counties in the state. But it’s offering a valuable model for the other 66. The model has three stages:

• Several weeks of education for officials and residents.

• A period in which the IDs of in-person deed filers are verified.

• Finally, a period in which the IDs of electronic deed filers are verified.  

Karnes told the Pine Island Eagle he’s proud to lead a team “on the cutting edge of hopefully solving a problem across Florida and the United States.”

And That’s Not All, Folks. Lee County Offers Deed Activity Alerts by Email

Lee County offers a property fraud alert service, free to all deed holders. It sends out a notification within 24 hours if a deed, mortgage, or other property document is recorded in a registered resident’s name. This service applies to homes, business properties, and deeds held in trusts.

Living in Lee County? If something is recorded in the county on your property, Lee Clerk Official Records will email you if you opt in. The subject will say Lee County Property Fraud Alert – Recording Activity Notification. You may edit or delete your registration process at any time.

Own property in another Florida county? All Florida counties offer deed activity alerts.

Some people, among the senior population especially, might not like registering for anything online. That’s OK. Karnes says you can register on behalf of a loved one. You’ll get the email. Then, you can check in with your loved one to make sure a bogus transaction didn’t happen. If it did, you can alert the county clerk and law enforcement.

Karnes says this system works well in Lee County, which has 550,000 parcels of land. Lee County intends to get them all registered in the new system by 2028.

In California, This Type of Deed Alert Is Now Required

As many counties have shifted into electronic document signings, California state senator Kelly Seyarto explains, taking deeds by fraudulent means has become easier. Seyarto adds:

Most homeowners do not regularly check with their county regarding their home title status. Consequently, victims of fraud remain unaware, which becomes costly and time consuming to correct.

So, under California’s recently enacted Senate Bill 255, property owners must be alerted to activity on their deeds. Los Angeles County has already put an alert system in place. This year, every California county must set up recorder alerts. So, deed alerts will be running statewide by the first day of January 2027. Counties may charge reasonable fees for this service.

The statewide model allows counties 30 days to mail notifications to the person who recorded the quitclaim or other deed, or a secured loan. This way, impersonation will come to light sooner rather than later. Errors in deeds, such as wrong addresses, can also come to light through these notices.

The new law allows any county to set up an electronic notification system, too.

The First American Title company is beginning a title monitoring and email alert service for its insured deed holders in 25 states, including California. Customers who sign up may use an online portal to view their title policy and a claim support feature.

Have You Signed Up for Title Alerts?

Many counties are adopting these systems, and most are free and easy to sign up for. A prompt alert could save the title from being conveyed yet again. In some cases it spares a deed holder from having to go through a court struggle to recover their deed. 

Suspect fraud? Speak with a local lawyer and your county office of the recorder of deeds. Immediately. By calling for help, you might be able to keep the bad actor from selling the deed off to an unsuspecting buyer.