Host Intro & Episode Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is the Empowering Healthy Business Podcast, and I'm your host, Kyle Wilder. Each episode we'll dive into topics important to folks who want to run businesses that are both nicely profitable, sustainable, and scalable, and who want to achieve balance in their lives and realize their potential inside and outside of work. The show is sponsored by SmartBooks, provider of bookkeeping and accounting for businesses. Let's get started. Welcome.

What Is Title Fraud

SPEAKER_00 0:28

So in this podcast, we're going to be uh discussing a specific type of fraud. Uh, unfortunately, as business owners and owners of assets in general, we've got to be protecting and be aware of different kinds of fraud and options for what we can do to protect against that. Um, sure we're all aware of credit card fraud. Uh it's been around for decades and how you can put a hold on your um your credit account so people can't open cards and your name without some independent verification. But that's kind of old news for a lot of it. Um, the last year or two, I've started to see more headlines around um title fraud as it relates to you know real estate assets. And I was kind of always curious, what did that mean and how did it work? And should I really have to worry about it or not? Um, and so when I got connected to today's guest, I'm like, oh, I gotta have him on to explain this whole fraud situation and um options that you could use to uh protect yourself against it. So I want to welcome uh Kurt Moore of Moat Title Security to the show. Welcome, Kurt.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Hi, hi, thank you for having me on. I appreciate the opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Um so could before we dig into all the details, could you just kind of give a brief summary of what is title fraud?

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Well, like what is it? So maybe start with what is a title and then what is title fraud.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Okay, fair enough, fair enough. So so when you purchase property, you're gonna get a deed to the property, and that's gonna be recorded in the public records where the property is located. And that's generally considered the title to the property, your deed and any encumbrances or liens or things that tied to that deed. That's the title of the title chain of your property. So title fraud is uh something that I've actually had direct experience with. It tried to happen to my elderly mother all the way back in 2014. Uh title fraud is when a fraudulent party will research the owner of a parcel of land, property, could be raw land, could be a house, could be a commercial property, and they will record a fraudulent bead from the legitimate owner's name into a fraudulent owner's name. Uh and for the purpose of trying to catalyze that uh recording through either putting mortgages on that.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Hold on, Kurty. Um you were frozen there for a second. Maybe the recording was fine on your end, but if you could just go back to the beginning of that last sentence or two.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Okay, sure.

How Fraudsters Forge and Record Deeds

SPEAKER_01 3:05

So so so the the uh title fraud happens when a party uh will will uh fraudulently record a deed in the public records, uh uh conveying the interest from a legitimate property owner into a fraudulent property owner name. Um and and the purpose of that uh is to attempt to put either mortgages on that, to quickly catalyze that fraudulent recording and take money. Or uh it's it's also not uncommon to attempt to quickly resell that property without the intent of actually closing. They're just looking on getting a bunch of offers and a bunch of earnest money deposits stacked up and then they uh disappear. So title fraud again is is uh when a party records a fraudulent deed uh attempting to uh take uh the equity out of a property from a legitimate owner.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

So it sounds like in those cases, um if you're the own legitimate owner of the property, you're probably not gonna lose the property, but you're gonna have to jump through a lot of hoops to clear your title, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Yeah, yeah. And that's a great question. There is a misconception, you know. People if I if I was going to attack your property, my intent is not to move you out of your property and move into your property. That that that's not the end goal. The end goal is to uh use that that uh conveyance, that fraudulent conveyance recorded in the public records to try to again go out and get mortgages or uh attempt to do a quick resell uh activity on the property. There's uh just a small basket of uh what I would call uh things you do after you record a fraudulent deed to make money. Uh that's what they're trying to do. Uh they're not actually trying to take the property, but they can do a tremendous amount of damage to the property.

Consequences and Quiet Title Actions

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Uh and with if you are attacked, uh you're going to have, as the as the legitimate property owner, you're going to be tasked with restoring your title in the public records. And that's that's generally called quiet title action. And you're going to need to uh get a judgment that uh essentially expunges the fraudulent conveyance and and all other subsequent conveyances that were harmful to the legitimate owner. And and you're right, that can take a lot of time, that can cost a lot of money, and it can be very emotionally draining. And and that's something we want to protect property owners from uh going through with title security.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

And if you're older, um you may not really it may be really hard to navigate this if you're an elderly person that this happens to, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:57

That's right. And and that's another great point. Uh if I'm uh in the business of doing this, I I'm I'm I'm going to generally be looking for elderly property owners, generally with high-value homes with little or no mortgages on them. That that is what is the low-hanging fruit. Uh and and uh oftentimes uh in the circumstances of my mother, she she she was she was elderly, she had a string of unfortunate medical problems that kept her in the hospital uh in rehab for quite a while, out of her home. Um so so very uh at risk of someone snooping in the title, taking action, trying to record things. She's not there, she's not keeping an eye on, and even if she was, she may not have understood what was going on. And and again, that's just exposes uh more risk uh for for what could happen uh for this type of fraud.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

So before we get into the solutions that you've developed, could you give us a little background? You've had an interesting career that I think gave you a lot of exposure to these kinds of issues, but in another industry that was specific, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Sure, sure. Uh prior to uh kicking off uh this uh moat tidal security adventure, I have spent a 30-year career in the oil and gas uh industry in the land uh disciplines, so land management, petroleum land management, which is heavily uh leaned into negotiating uh fairly complex contracts, and a lot of that is recorded in the public records. It's a lot of public

Targeting the Elderly and High‑Equity Homes

SPEAKER_01 7:35

record research associated with that career. So I spent a tremendous amount of time in various uh county offices uh in the western United States researching title and building an understanding of how that all works. Uh and remarkably I had an experience uh towards the tail end of my career where uh property title fraud actually tried to happen to a loved one. So uh that that gave me uh uh I believe that gave me a good foundation to to come up with a solution with my background uh with with complicated legal contracts, uh public recording, uh, and and again my personal experience of what can happen when that goes wrong. Uh that led me to uh to come up with the idea of Moat.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Okay. And so tell us more about Moat.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Sure. So the the idea of Moat uh is to uh uh record what we have titled a copyrighted as a notice of title freeze. And that document is uh simple but powerful in that it it just makes a statement to the public records uh and the public as a whole that says, hey, look, I own this property. I'm worried about title fraud for myself and my property. I have no intent of uh conveying an interest in this property or selling this property. Uh so I'm just gonna freeze it. I'm gonna record this notice of title freeze uh in the public records that says, hey, look, uh there was there shall be no more voluntary recordings against the title to my property without my express recorded consent, which is described in the notice of title freeze as a release of title freeze. So we built that to to work uh as similar as we can or could with what a credit freeze does. If you're familiar with a credit freeze, it's like, hey, look,

Kurt’s Background in Land Management

SPEAKER_01 9:28

I'm worried about my my uh personal uh credit information. Uh I think we've all had uh a fair amount of uh bad days with that. Uh most everyone's personal information has been lost, but probably multiple times. So uh by crew freezing your credit, you're you're not allowing a credit application or a loan application to go into the credit bureaus to do a search uh to determine credit risk, and it just essentially stops someone from opening a new credit file, uh either a credit card or a loan, including the legitimate party. I've got my credit freeze. So if I decided I wanted to take out a loan, I'm gonna have to unfreeze my credit to take out new credit. So we both turned those in title freeze to work as much as possible like that.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

And so does somebody literally like what justification would a fraudster use to file their you know, ownership of your title? Like what would they c how would they claim to have come to possess title to your property?

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Great question. Uh and what they're gonna do is they're gonna go into the public records and look for targets. And uh they'll be familiar with neighborhoods, there's any number of real estate uh-centric uh platforms you can use to consider uh homes and in various geographic areas. But at the end of the day, if I need to know who owns 123 Smith Street and uh any town in the USA, I'm gonna have to go to the public records and research that. And I'm gonna find the public, uh I'm gonna find the property owner of that uh address in the public records, and I'm going to see the deed that put them in possession of that, and then I'm going to quickly be able to make my own deed mirrored off of that information to take uh to convey, to build and convey

The Notice of Title Freeze Concept

SPEAKER_01 11:20

a uh fraudulent deed from the legitimate owner into another entity.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Aaron Powell So they forged the signature of the legitimate owner on that? Okay. Like you're selling your house. We've all you know, a lot of us have sold houses. Yeah, you you you reassign the deed or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Yeah, I mean, and it's generally in the form, not always, but it's generally in the form of a quick claim deed. Uh the very simple one-page deed uh describing a grantor and a grantee. And and you're right, they they forge the uh the the legitimate owner's name and they get uh uh shady notary to notarize it and they present it to the clerk and recorder and they generally record it. You know, it it's important to note that uh, you know, if if you're working at a county office and you're getting literally thousands of documents pressed to you daily to record, they don't have the expertise or the time to legitimize uh whether this is a uh a clean document or if it's a fraudulent document. They're generally looking, what is the document? Do we record those kinds of documents? Is it correctly uh signed, executed, um, and is it notarized? And if if it checks uh the boxes that are uh that are uh created at the Clerk and County office, uh you know, they're they're gonna record it.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

So you've developed this. It sounds like you trademarked it, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Or patented or what Yeah, the the the the documents, we've got two documents. Uh one the notice of title for each, and we have another document that's uh been built to protect property owners from squatters, but both of those have been uh copyrighted at the United States Copyright Office.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Okay. And have have you had any state registries of deeds reject those filings, or are they generally accepted?

SPEAKER_01 13:07

No, we have not. Um it's a bit of a laborious process that we're going through. And I know it's frustrating some people in states uh that are interested in having our services, and we're just not available in all 50 states yet, and we're working as hard as we can to get that. But we're going uh to the to the process of of reviewing our standard document form against each state statutes to make sure that what we record is not going to create any ambiguity in that state's uh with that state as it as it relates to things like fraud and property title and recording practices. A couple of states so far have had some things on the books that we needed to uh cite in our document and say, you know, this is how this document works as it relates to this state statute. This is what the owner intends to happen as it relates to freezing their title versus what the state has already has on the books for fraud. Most states don't, but what we don't want to do is uh start recording things

Why Clerks Still Record Fraudulent Deeds

SPEAKER_01 14:05

and then have a state pop up and say, hey, look, you know, we've already put some things on the books that uh seem to be ambiguous to what you're doing here, and we might have a uh a repair exercise. So it it is a bit of a process, but uh to answer your question, uh we have not uh had any pushback from any state. Any feedback that we get has been positive. Uh we we appreciate what you're trying to do here to protect our people.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

So it sounds like this is not something people should try to do themselves because you described it as a somewhat laborious process. It's not like filing uh a homestead uh template where you couldn't do that yourself if you wanted to, because it's just a template you can download from the registry or website or something, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:49

No, yeah, no. It's a hybrid concept. Uh, you know, it's it's again, we've we've copyrighted our document. We've made that uh to be a very clear and succinct uh message inside of a pretty short form uh so that it's not uh complicated for the average property owner to understand what they're trying to do here. And when they need to sell their home or they want to put a legitimate mortgage on their home, it's not complicated for them to uh uh uh unwind it and then and then wind it back on when they're ready. But uh it's I I don't believe it is something the average property owner could build from scratch. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Now this obviously applies to residential, you know, single-family homes or I guess multifamilies with one owner, right? Um does it apply in uh commercial situations as well?

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Well, we're it's a great question. Uh it I think primarily uh the uh the notion is protect uh uh property owners of single-family residences, it certainly applies in you know, multi-uh, you know, duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes. It applies there. It definitely applies in uh for those property owners that have multiple residents. So if you think of someone that lives

Multi‑State Adoption and Legal Fit

SPEAKER_01 16:05

in, you know, perhaps New Jersey uh in the summer and they've got a home down in uh Florida for the winter and they go back and forth, it makes a whole lot of sense to protect both of those properties because for roughly half of the year, one of those properties is not going to be occupied and it's more vulnerable.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Okay. Um so if folks are interested in pursuing this, um, what's the best way then to get in touch with you, verify that you're currently supporting the state in which they live?

SPEAKER_01 16:35

The best way to to get uh uh more information and and uh to to uh purchase a notice of title freeze is to visit our website, which is at remote titlescurity.com. Uh we we've just gone through an exercise of uh touching up that site to make it easier for people to find what they need. Um again, we've got the two products. I'll talk a little bit about the second product if there's time, uh, but they can learn more about both products, how they work, and if they're in a state that's supported. And and we try to keep uh kind of a coming soon uh list of states uh so that people know where we're gonna end up next. So cool.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Yeah, so let's talk about the uh the anti-squatter product. Uh what's what's the risk that you're trying to mitigate there and how do you go about mitigating that?

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Well, you know, I I think uh the the notion of uh unauthorized occupancy of property, that's been around for a while. I I think it really took a different form during the pandemic and after the pandemic. Um but but the the whole notion of squatting is you know, someone owns property. It could be vacant land, it could be a single-family dwelling, it could be a commercial property, it could be a ranch, it could be uh uh just a lot somewhere. And someone uh sees that as an opportunity to uh claim that they have a right to occupy that property. And uh that that is the uh the the catchphrase for that is squatting. Someone

Where It Applies: Residential to Second Homes

SPEAKER_01 18:05

uh enters your property and makes a claim that they have a right to be there. And uh unfortunately, as that un uh unfolds, generally how that goes is property owns property, it could be a rental property, it could be uh a second home. Um it's generally not the primary home you live in because you're there too often. It's usually an unoccupied property of some sort. Uh someone targets that, they break in, they change the locks, they change the garage door openers, they take the effort of putting the utilities in their name, and they essentially just claim it. Uh and the the owner of the property, you know, sooner or later becomes aware that someone's in their property without their permission. Um sometimes they confront them directly, sometimes they just call the local authorities. Uh, but in any event, sooner or later, generally a uh sheriff's deputy or a uh police officer is gonna go out there and say, hey, look, I'm here uh at the request of the owner of this property to they're claiming you don't have a right to be here. Well, what are you doing? Why are you here? They want you, but they want me to effectively remove you from the property. And you know, these these these people that do this are actually pretty good at what they're doing. Uh they'll just say, oh, no, no, I have a right to be here. They can produce a fake lease, they generally produce

How to Engage Moat Title Security

SPEAKER_01 19:25

a story, they show that, hey, well, I got keys, I got cross door openers, look, the utilities are in my name. They they build uh somewhat of a compelling story, at least in the eyes of a sheriff's deputy or a police officer, that there's a dispute here. You know, that there's the property owner says one thing, the people that are living here are saying something completely different. If you if you think about what a police officer and a sheriff's deputy are uh charged to do, they're charged to investigate crime. Uh you know, and and you know, they're if there's a clear uh understanding of trespassing here, if they can see doors broken in and windows broken, you know, they they can start to become

The Anti‑Squatter Notice of Occupancy

SPEAKER_01 20:05

uh they can start to put piece together, maybe this was a crime, but if it doesn't appear like a crime scene, they generally say, well, okay, you know, I'm gonna have to go back and and uh report uh and and and make my report on this, but they can't generally come to a quick conclusion that uh it is in fact uh an unauthorized occupant of the property, and it becomes a civil matter, you know, and and and the police officers, sheriffs, deputies, they generally are not going to get too deep in civil matters, that they're in crime. Uh so at that point, the legitimate property owner has has to take a civil action uh of some sort to reclaim their property. And that can take uh a long time, depending on what jurisdiction you're in, what state you're in. Uh it can take a lot of money. Uh, it's a lot of legal costs, you're gonna have to get on a docket, you're gonna have to get in front of a judge, you're gonna have to make your case, they may or might not show up, they may or might not have a counter case. Meanwhile, if someone's in your property that that doesn't belong there, that you don't have, you're not given permission to be there, they're generally harming the property.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Uh probably are somewhat judgment proof with limited assets to recover against, right? So the longer this goes on, the more damage gets done. And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

It's it's it's just it's it creates this downward, downward spile. Your property, you can't reclaim it. They're in there damaging it. They they could be doing all kinds of illegal other things while they're in your property. And you're right. Yeah, i i when you prevail, you generally will prevail, uh, but it could take months. Uh but you're not gonna you're not gonna get a uh a penny out of them. You may get a judgment, but they don't have any assets to uh generally to to to uh to uh uh affect the judgment. So it it's that that is a process. I I don't believe there's any company out there, if there is, I'm I'm curious, uh, that has come up with a solution to that. What we've come up with is what we call a notice of occupancy. And it's it's built similarly to our notice of title freeze, and that it just says, hey, look, I own this property and I have no intent whatsoever of having a tenant in it. And if anyone ever shows up in that property and claims they have a right to be there, that's wrong. It's it's not true. That is not my intent as the owner of the property. Uh, if anyone shows up in there and claims they have a right, that's uh that's fraud, and I reserve the right to evict them, and I reserve the right to show this notice of occupancy to the local authorities and the courts if necessary to substantiate my my uh my design and my intent for my property. So uh, you know, if if you think about whether it's someone snooping around the edges of your property to think about attacking you with a notice of title, uh with a title uh title attack or a squatter attack, they're gonna bump into these documents uh recorded in the uh in the public records. They're gonna have to do some research to to season their attack on you, and they're gonna do that research in the public records. We record these scenes in the public records. We believe that's a deterrent uh uh that's not afforded by our competition. And we believe uh that in and of itself is gonna protect our clients differently than our competition protects their clients. And again, if if you are attacked, you've got evidence to take to the courts and say, hey, look, here's what I really intended to have happen for my property. I've really intended for nobody to record anything except me, if I first and only if I release my title freeze first. Or if I did decide to have a tenant, I would record a notice of property lease and identify the one party on the full face of the earth that would be a legitimate tenant in my property, and everyone else is still not a legitimate tenant in my property. So it's just setting a good uh boundary and a wall around your property, a moat, if you will, uh, to protect yourself from fraud.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

What are your thoughts on the need to periodically refile these or file a confirmation or something? Because somebody could argue, well, you filed that thing five years ago, and then you changed your mind and you did a deal with me, and you just forgot to uh update that filing.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

You know, we we these aren't purposefully meant to not time out. Uh it it it it's it's a great question because we have had people uh freeze their title and and then they'll call in somewhat of a panic saying, oh my gosh, I forgot

Civil vs Criminal and Eviction Delays

SPEAKER_01 24:20

to freeze my title. And you know, I've gotten uh 90% down the road to doing a refi, and they bumped into it. Uh that they be in the title company that's doing the closing, and they just pull the plug and they said, until you record or release the title freeze, we can't close on your property. So we we generally hustle and hustle and get get a get those title freeze prepared and off to their title company so they don't get tripped up. But it does a time out. Um it's it's not gonna be something that, you know, after five years, if I forget about it, I can just go wander off and do business. Uh it it's it lives in the title until you either sell the property or release it. And uh even to sell the property, you're you're gonna need to release the freeze to get the closing done.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Okay, cool. Is there anything else you want to share about these two products?

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Uh, you know, I think the the only thing I would share is our our view is to be more proactive. Um, you know, our competition is is uh anchored in the world of monitoring. Uh I was probably one of the early in entry monitors in title uh property title fraud, as I was monitoring my mother's title the years after I saw uh someone tried to take it take advantage of her. I think I think uh my my message to property owners, if you're concerned about this at all, uh there's really three things you can do. Nothing, uh, which is probably the vast majority of property owners. You can have uh your your title monitored. A lot of counties uh across the United States, for example, every county in Florida now will monitor your title for free and give you notice if something's been recorded. I I think that's a pretty good uh and and very cost-effective way to to uh to prevent or or uh to protect yourself from this risk. It doesn't do anything for squatters, but for for title fraud, it sure does. There's any number of uh uh companies in the market that you can pay a subscription to have uh your your title monitored, and then we'll give you notice that something's been recorded. And then we just tried to set ourselves off on a different place uh to be more proactive and record, again, this notice of title three and the records just to deter and and and and we believe it's protect at a greater level than monitoring.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Great. Um so I gotta go back to your prior job and ask you a question there. You're doing a lot of land work and registrations in the oil and gas industry. Um how realistic is that? Would you technically call the landman?

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Oh, you yeah, I'm sorry, you froze up right after you said I've got a question for you. Can you can you repeat that?

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Um You know, in your previous career, were you technically called the landman?

SPEAKER_01 26:58

I was. Uh my my career uh was was uh about half in the field and half in the corporate offices. And when I was in the field, I was uh definitely titled the landman for sure.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

So how realistic is that show with Billy Bob Thornton? I'm assuming not Baron.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Yeah, you know, uh I to be

Document Deterrence and Evidence Trail

SPEAKER_01 27:20

honest with you, I haven't watched uh many of those. I watched that early on and kind of used to give texts and calls. I'm like, wow, we got no idea. You're you had such a exciting career. And I'm like, well, you know, I don't recall really any of those things happening in my career. I was uh neck deep in old books and in crusty old dusty uh county offices researching title chains and or I was negotiating with surface owners for you know surface use agreements or right-of-ways or you know, or maybe negotiating an oil and gas waste. I was not at the uh right at the point of uh well operations. That that's generally, in my opinion, that's generally not what land people do. Yeah.

unknown 28:01

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

It's pretty glamorous, though. I mean, uh with you that. And uh they make that out to be quite the uh exciting job. I I just think it's a little bit overpromoted.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

Yeah. Yeah, it's very entertaining, but probably unrealistic. Uh um all right, so I really appreciate you spending the time with us, Kurt, to help explain the the risks around title fraud and um squatting. And uh I'm excited that you've developed these two products that um take whatever previous uh solutions to there were to the next level with what uh moat title security can provide. So um again, if folks want to reach you, what's the best way for them to do that?

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Again, uh thank you for having me on the podcast. I really enjoyed the exchange and the opportunity to just talk a little bit about Moat. But if parties are interested in learning more about a notice of title freeze or a notice of occupancy or generally what Mo does and stands for, they can uh investigate us at Mo

Duration, Releases, and Closings

SPEAKER_01 29:00

TitleSecurity.com. Uh there's uh there's email uh opportunities for email questions there, phone number, uh multiple ways to get a hold of us if you have questions. But there's a lot of information on that site. So I'd encourage parties that are curious to visit that site and learn more.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Awesome. Thank you, Kurt. This has been another exciting episode of Empowering Healthy Business. We'll see you all next time. Thanks again. Another episode in the books. Thank you so much for tuning in. For show notes and more, visit empowering healthy business.com. If you would like to have a one-on-one discussion with me, or possibly engage smart books to help with your business, you can reach me at Cal C A L at Empowering Healthy Business dot com or message me on LinkedIn where I am easy to find. Until next time, this is Empowering Healthy Business, the podcast for business owners signing off.