A warning to recent homebuyers: Watch out for deed scam

When you purchase a property, the deed transferring the title of the property to you is recorded in the public land records. This deed contains your name and the property address, or at least enough information for someone to figure out the property address.

There are companies that troll these public land records for new property transfers in order to use that information for marketing purposes.

I recently bought a property in Maryland, and a few weeks later, I received a strange letter. It was from a somewhat official sounding company, and it said that it was very important that I obtain a copy of my property deed and that if I sent $80 to the company, they would send it to me. 

I quickly realized what this was: a complete waste of money. 

In fact, I already had the original deed to my property, which I had received from Federal Title, who had handled my closing.

It looks like this scam is not limited to our area. There are reports of the same type of deed scam is happening in Alabama, for example.

If you get one of these letters, please remember that you will be receiving the original deed from the title company that handled your closing, as soon as they receive it back from the jurisdiction where it was recorded.

If you want a copy before you receive the original, in most jurisdictions, you can find it online, possibly for free, but definitely for much less than $80.