With Real Estate title fraud on the rise, homeowners are increasingly looking for ways to protect themselves and their properties.
As of late, some examples of fraud in the media involve a fraudster who assumes the identity of the real homeowners to subsequently attempt to sell the property, either privately or using a Real Estate Agent.
As discussed on our recent blog, if you have a rental property, vacant property, or are planning to be out of town for a prolonged period, your property might be more susceptible to this type of title fraud.
One potential solution to offer some degree of protection is to identify if and when your property address appears on the Internet. Typically, when a property is listed for sale, it appears on a Multiple Listing Service (MLS), or advertising sites like Kijiji and others.
As a homeowner, an easy way to keep tabs on what information is available online about your property is by setting up a Google Alert for your property address. With a Google Alert, you’ll receive an email notification whenever your property address appears in a Google search result. This is by no stretch, a fool-proof way to prevent or even deter fraud, but it is an extra step a homeowner can take to get alerted whenever their property address appears online. Best of all, it comes at no cost and it takes just a few minutes to set it up.
Here’s how to set up a Google Alert for your property address:
Step 1: Go to Google Alerts
First, navigate to the Google Alerts page by typing “google.com/alerts” into your web browser or searching for “Google Alerts” in Google.
Step 2: Enter Your Property Address
In the search bar, enter your property address. Be sure to include any relevant details, such as your city and province. You may want to look up how your address is formatted on real estate websites and replicate a similar format in your search terms. For example, if you find properties on your street typically follow the format “#412 – Main St, Markham, Ontario”, try to replicate this format for your address. Use quotation marks around your property address to ensure that you’re only alerted when the full address appears in search results.
Step 3: Set Up Alert Preferences
Next, choose your alert preferences. You can choose how often you’d like to receive alerts, the sources you’d like to monitor (such as news, blogs, or webpages), and the language and region you’d like to search.
Step 4: Create Your Alert
Once you’ve set your preferences, click the “Create Alert” button to set up your alert. You’ll now receive email notifications whenever your property address appears in a Google search result.
Tips for Managing Your Google Alerts to deter title fraud
To make the most of your Google Alerts, here are a few tips for managing them:
- – Use quotation marks around your property address to ensure that you’re only alerted when the full address appears in search results.
- – Refine your search by including additional keywords, such as your property’s neighborhood or street name.
- – Set up alerts for variations of your property address, such as abbreviations or misspellings, to ensure that you don’t miss any results. For example, “St.” as opposed to “Street”. Since Google returns only results that literally match what you have in quotation marks, you’ll want to consider different variations to expand the alerts you receive.
- – If you’re receiving too many alerts, consider adjusting your search settings to narrow down your results.
- – If you’re not receiving any alerts, try broadening your search settings to include more sources.
The Bottom Line
Setting up a Google Alert for your property address is a free and simple way to stay informed about what information is available online about your home and ensure that you’re always up-to-date on any new information that appears in Google search results.
Important note: This article is not Legal Advice. No one should act, or refrain from acting, based solely upon the materials provided on this website, any hypertext links or other general information without first seeking appropriate legal or other professional advice.
