A growing real estate scam starts with an audacious premise: A criminal pretends to be a property owner and tries to sell a home or piece of land that does not belong to them.
And title professionals say they’re seeing a lot more of it.
In a survey released on Monday from the American Land Title Association, 59% of title firms reported encountering at least one seller impersonation fraud attempt in the prior calendar year—more than double the 28% that reported one in ALTA’s 2024 survey.
Nearly 1 in 4 respondents (23%) said they had encountered three or more attempts in the month before the latest survey, up from just 4% two years earlier.
The FBI has separately warned that a related form of property fraud is on the rise. In April 2025, its Boston division said it was seeing a “steady increase” in reports of quitclaim deed fraud, including cases where owners had no idea their property had been sold—or was in the process of being sold.
The new ALTA findings offer a closer look at how criminals select properties, impersonate their owners, and attempt to turn someone else’s real estate into cash.
How do you sell a home you don’t own?
Seller impersonation fraud occurs when a criminal assumes the identity of a property owner and attempts to illegally sell the property. ALTA says fraudsters may use the actual owner’s identifying information and even legitimate notary credentials without the notary’s knowledge.
Finding potential targets may be surprisingly straightforward.
“Most property records are online and can be queried in systematic ways,” says Howard Jacobson, a real estate lawyer, investor, and developer.
The FBI has similarly warned that scammers comb public property records looking for vacant land and properties without a mortgage or other lien. They can then impersonate the owner, approach a real estate agent, and ask to list the property. In some cases, the real owner does not learn what happened until after the sale.
“It boils down to property owner impersonation,” Joe Cardosi, a special agent with the FBI’s Newark field office, warned in 2024. “These bad actors are able to use electronic communications to convince everyone at every level of a property sale that they’re the rightful owner of the property and, therefore, the rightful recipient of the sale proceeds. But they don’t own the property.”
The scam is evolving
ALTA’s latest survey suggests criminals still favor properties that are easier to transact without attracting the real owner’s attention: 72% of respondents said absentee ownership was at least somewhat common among properties targeted in seller impersonation fraud, while 68% said the same of properties owned free and clear.
Those figures do not mean 68% of paid-off properties are targets. Rather, they show which characteristics title professionals commonly encounter in these schemes.
Vacant land remains by far the most commonly reported property target, cited by 82% of respondents. But the latest survey suggests the target pool is widening.
The share of respondents identifying primary residences as a somewhat common target rose 13 percentage points from 2024, to 25%. Vacation homes, rentals, and agricultural land also registered double-digit increases.
The FBI has observed a similar shift. Its Newark division previously warned that scammers who had initially focused heavily on vacant land were expanding to other types of property as real estate professionals became more familiar with the scheme.
The tactics are evolving, too.
In ALTA’s survey, 87% of respondents said spoofed contact information was at least somewhat common in seller impersonation schemes. Seventy percent reported criminals using owners’ birth dates, while 60% cited existing knowledge of financial information and 55% cited Social Security numbers.
Deepfake technology is now part of the picture as well: 58% of respondents rated deepfake images or voices as at least somewhat common, although ALTA asked about the technology for the first time this year, so the survey cannot show whether its use is increasing.
If the sale goes through, catching the criminal may not fix it
ALTA’s data includes both successful and unsuccessful attempts. But when the fraud gets through, the financial consequences can be substantial.
Among firms that encountered at least one seller impersonation attempt, 25% also reported a paid claim tied to the fraud. Among the subset that reported a claim and disclosed its average cost, half said their average claims exceeded $100,000.
The FBI does not separately track losses from quitclaim deed fraud. But from 2019 through 2023, 2,301 victims across Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island reported more than $61.5 million in losses in the broader real estate fraud category.
“Folks across the region are having their roots literally pulled out from under them and are being left with no place to call home. They’re suffering deeply personal losses that have inflicted a significant financial and emotional toll, including shock, anger, and even embarrassment,” said Jodi Cohen, special agent in charge of the FBI Boston division.
A completed fraudulent sale can also create competing legal problems for the original owner and an unsuspecting buyer.
Florida real estate attorney Romy B. Jurado represented a client in a related case in which criminals allegedly manipulated control of an LLC that owned real estate and then caused properties to be sold to third-party buyers. The FBI became involved and arrests followed, she says, but by then the properties had already changed hands.
“Catching the criminal and recovering the property or money are entirely different issues,” Jurado says.
How homeowners can protect themselves
The FBI recommends that owners regularly monitor public property records and enroll in deed or title notification programs offered by county clerks or registrars where available. Owners of vacant properties can also set online alerts for their addresses and pay attention to unexpected changes in tax or utility bills.
Those measures may help homeowners discover suspicious activity sooner, but they do not necessarily stop someone from trying.
“Preventing the fraud you described is hard,” Jacobson says. Many local recording offices allow owners to request notice when a document is recorded against their property.
That may be especially important in a scam built around keeping the real owner out of the transaction entirely: By the time they realize someone has been pretending to be them, the fake seller may already have found a real buyer.
That’s why the FBI also urges proactive action.
“We are urging the public to heed this warning and to take proactive steps to avoid losing your property,” Cohen added. “Anyone who is a victim of this type of fraud should report it to us.”
