A reader recently sent us a video on a real and growing concern: once your mortgage is paid off, there's no lender routinely watching your title for suspicious activity. That opens the door to deed fraud, where someone files falsified paperwork claiming to transfer ownership of your home, then uses it to take out a loan against the property or attempt a sale. It's rare, but the cleanup can be a real headache, so a little prevention goes a long way.

Start here, and it's free:

1. Sign up for your county's property alert system, if it has one. Multnomah County's Property Recording Alert Service (PRAS) emails you the same day any document is recorded under your name, with a direct link to view it. Sign up for Multnomah County PRAS here. Columbia County launched a similar free PRAS program in early 2026. As of this writing, we couldn't confirm that Washington or Clackamas County (Portland spans all three) offer an equivalent program, so if that's where your property sits, call your County Clerk's Recording Division directly and ask, these programs are rolling out on a county-by-county basis and yours may add one soon. Not sure which county holds your deed? Check the legal description or tax lot number on your original deed... or ask us to find it for you!

2. Freeze your credit with all three bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion). This won't stop a deed transfer, but it makes it much harder for a criminal to profit from a stolen title by opening credit or loans in your name. It's free and can be undone anytime you need to apply for credit yourself.

3. Do a quick manual check once or twice a year. Search your own address on your county recorder's database and on major listing sites, just to confirm nothing's changed.

If you want more than the free tools offer:

Paid services like Aura and LifeLock bundle title monitoring into broader identity protection plans, and add a "restoration team" to help you navigate cleanup if fraud does happen, worth considering if you also want broader identity theft coverage or own property in multiple counties or states. Just know what you're paying for: independent reviews (and an FTC consumer alert) note these services work the same way the free county alert does, they notify you after a document is filed, not before.

For higher-risk situations, a paid-off home, an LLC-held property, or an inherited or vacant property, some newer companies (Title Barrier's "Defense Plan" is one example) offer something different: a recorded legal layer on the title itself meant to add friction before a fraudulent filing can go through, rather than just alerting you after. We haven't personally vetted these newer products, so treat this as a starting point for your own research rather than an endorsement.

Bottom line: the free county alert system plus a credit freeze covers the basics for most homeowners. Everything beyond that is about how much extra peace of mind, and how much extra cost, feels right for your situation.