On AM radio, I hear numerous advertisers scaring people to hire them to protect you from what they call title theft. That's when someone steals your identity and sells your home out from under you or takes out a loan in your name. In reality, in decades as a title searcher, I'm unaware of a single instance of this happening in the Lehigh Valley. It's possible, but I've never seen it. It has happened in Philly, but it's rare. But just as fear mongering is very effective in politics, it works well when trying to get people to open their purses. Over the past few years, as the ads have intensified, I've seen more and more worried homeowners stumble into the Recorder's office to express concern. There's no need, thanks to a new service being offered in Northampton County.
When anything is recorded in Northampton County, it is immediately available online through a third party vendor called Landex. It maintains an online deed index in which anything related to your real estate is available for review. The county has set up a new system with Landex called Record Alert System. Under this program, you can sign up and be notified immediately whenever a change is made to property you own.
According to Executive Lamont McClure, "County residents can look into the LANDEX webstore for free to see what activity was recorded. If a document is presented properly, signed, and acknowledged, the Recorder of Deeds is obligated to record it. If a document is on record that residents did not authorize, residents can look into it further."
You can sign up for this service here.
While the possibility of someone trying to steal your title is remote, this service will give you something that fear-mongering radio advertisers hate - peace of mind.
4 comments:
Thanks for telling us about Landex---it reminds me, though, of the fact that many people, believe it or not, do not have access to online business. The late medical industry is making the same assumption -- unless you have computer access, you are not a human being. Yes, we are hearing about home title theft, and it seems to me that if the titles are placed online, then they become vulnerable to theft.
What I'd like is for Lehigh and Northampton counties to ditch Landex and move to a free-to-use online system searchable by anyone like many other counties across the country have, including many in NJ. Make unofficial copies/downloads free (these usually have part of the recorder's stamp on the first page obscured on the free systems) and charge for official/certified copies. Raise the recording fees to pay for it.
I know we have valley has in free system. You just has to find it here's the link this is how I check mine three times a week just put in the address https://lehighgis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=42536953612d4526b62805bb7e2782a4
Just put the address in or search the map for your address
https://lehighgis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=42536953612d4526b62805bb7e2782a4
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