LAURINBURG — A new service provided through Scotland County offers property owners protection from the potential for property and mortgage fraud.
According to L. Page Pratt III, the county register of deeds, the service is being provided by Cott Systems PropertyCheck and was contracted by Scotland County for three years at a one-time cost of $400.
“Records in many states are made available for viewing online at no cost or sometimes for a fee, which makes it easier to track recordings on your property, but it does require persistence and, in some cases, costs the taxpayer for access,” according to a statement from Cott Systems. “This solution eliminates the time associated with doing a search on your name or property by alerting the resident by email or text message when a document has been recorded that matches the alerts that they activated.“
Pratt said the service is now available 24/7 and allows residents to sign up on the county’s website to receive notifications of recordings on their property by activating alerts based on their name. There is no cost to county residents to participate.
He added that, although this type of fraud hasn’t been a big problem locally, the growing range of identity heft could mean the problem might grow.
“Last year we had a situation with an out-of-town law firm using the wrong names in a deed,” Pratt explained. “With PropertyCheck, this situation wouldn’t have been stopped, but the affected people would have known about it sooner and been able to start working on resolving the situation.
“With the prevalence of identity theft, this service is another way for people to monitor parts of their lives that are sometimes out of sight, out of mind,” he added.
County residents can sign up for Cott PropertyCheck alerts at the Register of Deeds’ page on the County’s website at: http://www.scotlandcounty.org/ — and Pratt said if any residents have questions or need assistance with the program, they can call the county Register of Deeds Office at 910-277-2577 during regular business hours
W. Curt Vincent can be reached at 910-506-3023 or cvincent@laurinburg.com.
