The statistics of mortgage fraud have been increasing dramatically recently, particularly over the past few years, and this is an issue that obviously needs to be dealt with immediately, as mortgage fraud is clearly an incredibly significant and problematic issue. The worst part is that most people are not even actually aware of what it is, and so they are not able to protect themselves against it.
What Mortgage Fraud is
Mortgage fraud is basically a specific type of real estate fraud that most often results in hurting the financial institutions that actually lend the money to the person for them to purchase property. The most common form of this fraud today is one which involves fraudsters acquiring property and then artificially increasing the property's overall value through a series of events, including sales and re-sales between the fraudsters themselves and someone who is working in cooperation with them.
The Difference Between Mortgage Fraud and Title Fraud
A lot of people tend to get these two types of fraud confused, but they are actually quite different. Title fraud is actually a completely different type of real estate fraud altogether, and it is one which hurts the homeowners rather than the lending institutions. In comparison to the more than two million real estate transactions that take place each and every year in the province, there are a relatively numbered cases that involve title fraud.
What generally takes place in the case of title fraud is that the criminals will use stolen identities or forged documents to allow them to transfer a registered owner's title to themselves, without the registered owner's knowledge, of course. The criminals are then able to obtain a mortgage on the property and once the funds go through and are advanced on the mortgage, then they simply disappear.
Protecting Yourself
Especially because these sorts of crimes are becoming more and more popular, you need to make sure that you take the proper steps and security measures in order to protect yourself as best as you can. There is the land registration system that is available, which has a proven track record for security, accuracy and efficiency. It allows you to be able to trust in a constantly improving system which has introduced automation, electronic registration and enhanced security to land registration.
This is important, as is making sure that you keep a close eye on your bills, and notice for any strange or sudden changes.
