For owners who have paid off the house

Your house can now be sold on a video call you were never on. One document can prevent it!

Two in five American homes have no mortgage1. The FBI says forgers look for exactly those, because no lender is at the closing to notice a stranger selling your house3. Now a deed can be notarized over a webcam, and AI can fake your face on the call5. A recorded Notice of Interest adds a step that requires your physical mailbox: before any sale or loan is insured, the title examiner has to reach you by certified mail and get your notarized say-so.

  • In your county's records within days of filing
  • $99.00 once. County recording fee paid separately.
  • Florida today. Arizona, Nevada and Utah coming soon.
Where this is heading

Fake sellers doubled in one year. Paid-off houses are what they are after.

Most owners hear about this kind of theft only after it has happened to them.

Title companies that faced a fake seller
59%
More than doubled in a year
Up from 28% in 2024.
ALTA 2026 study4
Real estate fraud losses reported to the FBI
$275M
Up 59% in a year, across 12,368 complaints
Up from $173M in 2024.
FBI IC3 2025 report2
Losses reported to the FBI by Americans 60 and older
$7.75B
Up 59% in a year, across 201,266 complaints
Up from $4.9B in 2024.
FBI IC3 2025 report9
Owner-occupied homes with no mortgage
39.4%
Up five points in ten years
Up from 34.4% in 2014.
Census Bureau, 2024 ACS1
How it happens

A stranger with a fake ID and a webcam can sell your house

  1. They find you

    Your name, your address and the fact that no lender is on your title are all public records. The FBI says forgers "comb through public records" for houses with no mortgage3. Data breaches supply the rest: one leak alone exposed roughly 2.9 billion records7. AI can now sort a whole county by who is easiest to target.

  2. They become you

    A deed can now be notarized on a video call, and AI can put your face on that call. In April 2026 a deepfake posed as a Maryland landowner on a notary call, for a sale worth about $100,0005.

  3. They sell your house

    A buyer pays, the forger disappears, and the county record shows someone else as the owner. Getting your house back usually means going to court.

The FBI logged 22,364 complaints involving AI in 2025, with $893 million lost2.

An older couple on a sofa reading a letter together
The people forgers pick first: owners who have paid the house off and are not expecting anyone to test the title.
The chain as the examiner reads it. Everything after the notice sits behind an open instruction to write to you first.
What the notice does

A deepfake can pass a video call. It cannot answer a letter in your mailbox.

  • It goes into your county's records, under your name and parcel.
  • Every later title search finds it. Before a sale or loan is insured, the title examiner has to reach you by certified mail and get your notarized reply.
  • Timing matters. File first, and any later forged deed sits behind your notice. File after a forgery, and you are cleaning up after a closing instead of being asked before one.

The FBI tells buyers to mail a certified letter to the owner on the tax roll before trusting a seller8. The notice makes that the title examiner's job.

What it does not do

  • Keep a recorder from accepting a forged document. Recorders file what is presented.
  • Catch a cash sale with no title search.
  • Replace your county's free recording alert. Step 3 of the kit enrolls you in it.
How it works

Four steps, one of them at a notary

Step one: your address matched to the county roll and the owner names pulled in. Real roll fields, sample names.
  1. Look up the parcel

    Enter the address. We pull the parcel number, the legal description, and the names on the last deed, and fill the notice in.

  2. Sign in front of a notary

    Print it. Every owner on the deed signs in front of a local notary, with ID. A notary costs about ten dollars, and you keep the stamped original.

  3. Record it with the county

    Mail it or walk it in with the exact fee, payee, address, and a cover letter from your kit. The county stamps it and sends the original back.

  4. We watch for the stamp

    Your tracker listens for the county's recording alert and reads the stamp off a photo. When the county has filed it, you get one email saying so.

From the founder

I spent my career investigating criminals and defending companies against them. This is the simplest fix I know.

As an FBI Special Agent I saw how fraud cases actually end: not with the forgery being caught, but with a paper trail someone did or did not leave. As a Chief Information Security Officer at several leading US companies and institutions, I had to witness firsthand how creative and determined fraudsters were to take advantage of security gaps. After the National Public Data leak alone, a name, a Social Security number, and every address a person has lived at sell for a few dollars7, and there were 3,322 more breaches last year6. A forger no longer has to steal your identity. It is already for sale, sorted by ZIP code. And co-founding an AI company, AI StackOps, taught me how cheap a convincing fake ID, voice, or video call has become on top of it.

Deed fraud sits at the intersection of all three. The document is easy to forge, the owner is the last to know, and the closing has no one whose job is to ask the owner. A recorded notice puts that checkpoint in the one place every insured sale or loan has to pass through, and the checkpoint is a letter to your physical mailbox and your reply. A deepfake can get a forged deed notarized. It cannot answer your mail. In the age of AI, this was the first thing I told my own family to do. One page in the county records, before you need it.

Alex Borhani
Founder, Zone Shield LLC

Alerts tell you afterward. The notice acts before a sale is insured.

OptionCostFiled with the county?When it acts
County fraud alertFreeNoEmails you after something records. The kit enrolls you.
Title monitoring subscriptionMonthly, ongoingNoAlso after the fact.
Notice of Interest kit$99.00 once, plus the county feeYesAt the next title search, before a sale or loan is insured.
Price

One payment. It stays in the county records until you release it.

$99.00

You pay once, which is less than a year of title monitoring. Your county charges its own recording fee when you file, about $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each page after that in Florida. The notary charges you directly; Florida caps it at $10 per signature.

Buying it for a parent? Gift a notice. They get a code by email on the day you choose, they do the signing, and the code never expires.

The kit includes

  • The notice, pre-filled from the county record and rendered to your state's recording format
  • Notary instructions: who signs, what ID to bring, the state fee cap
  • Enrollment in your county's free recording alert
  • Exact fee, payee, mailing and walk-in address, cover letter, checked by our staff and dated
  • One email when the county has filed it
  • A free regenerated notice if the clerk sends it back
Questions

Before you start

Does this stop deed fraud?

No single thing does. A recorder can still accept a forged deed. What the notice changes is the next step: before any sale or loan is insured, the examiner has to address your notice, and clearing it means reaching you. A forger who cannot get past that step does not get paid. It works best when it is already on record before a forged deed arrives.

Will my county record it?

The notice is rendered to your state's statutory recording format (in Florida, section 695.26), and each state's template is reviewed by counsel before we sell it there. Fee, payee, and addresses come from the clerk's own site and show the date our staff last checked them. If a clerk rejects it, we regenerate it free.

The county alert is free. Why pay?

Enroll in it; step 3 of the kit walks you through it. The alert tells you after a document records, which is the point at which you are already hiring a lawyer. The notice acts before a sale or loan is insured.

I still have a mortgage. Is this for me?

Yes, if you have real equity. Forgers prefer paid-off homes because there is no lender in the way, but a home-equity loan taken out in your name works the same way, and the FBI's figures include both. If you are close to paying off, filing now means the notice is already in the county records on the day the lender's lien comes off.

What becomes public?

Your names exactly as they appear on the deed, the legal description, and a mailing address, which the tax roll already publishes. Never a phone number, an email, or a date of birth. Your email is used for the kit and tracker only.

Do I need a lawyer?

We prepare a document; we do not give legal advice. In states where attorneys customarily handle recordings, the kit says so and suggests a review. Every state we sell in has had its template reviewed by counsel first.

I do not live in the house. Can I still file?

Yes, and those are the houses that need it most: a vacation home, a rental, one you inherited, or one you moved out of and kept. Forgers look for owners who are not around. The notice goes on the parcel, so it works wherever you live. Print the address where you actually get mail, since that is where the title examiner's letter will go. One notice covers one parcel. If the house belongs to a parent, they sign it, but you can pay for it as a gift.

My home is in a trust or an LLC.

Supported. The trustee or manager signs for it. The kit lists what to bring to the notary and the clerk: a certification of trust, or the state filing and the resolution naming the signer.

Does this affect my will, trust, or estate plan?

No. The notice is not a lien, it does not transfer or restrict ownership, and it does not change who inherits. You can still put the home in a trust, leave it in a will, refinance, or sell. It asks anyone examining title to confirm with the owner first. If you move the home into a trust after recording the notice, the trustee handles that confirmation from then on.

What happens to the notice after I die?

It stays in the county records. Whoever handles your estate answers the title examiner's letter with a notarized confirmation, just as you would, plus the paper that shows their authority. Under a will that is your personal representative; under a trust, your successor trustee. It does not slow probate. Tell that person the notice exists, and keep the recorded original with your deed.

Will a Notice of Interest affect my credit score?

No. It is recorded with the county, not reported to Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion, and it is not a loan, a lien, or a judgment. If you later borrow against the house, the lender's title examiner sends you the certified letter, and your reply clears it.

What happens when I sell or refinance?

Tell the title company up front that a Notice of Interest is recorded and where to send the certified inquiry. You reply with the notarized confirmation. At closing, a recorded release takes the notice off; the tracker gives you the release kit.

AI fakes will only get more convincing. Act before someone sells your house without you.

$99.00 once. Available in Florida; Arizona, Nevada and Utah coming soon.

Sources

  1. U.S. Census Bureau, "Nearly 40% of U.S. Homeowners Did Not Have a Mortgage in 2024", January 2026 (2024 ACS 5-year estimates)
  2. FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2025 Internet Crime Report, April 2026
  3. FBI Boston Division, "FBI Boston Warns Quit Claim Deed Fraud is on the Rise", April 10, 2025
  4. American Land Title Association, Critical Issues Study: Seller Impersonation Fraud, 2026
  5. HousingWire, "How real estate pros can stay ahead of deepfake fraudsters", April 10, 2026
  6. Identity Theft Resource Center, 2025 Annual Data Breach Report, January 2026
  7. IBM, "National Public Data breach publishes private data of 2.9B US citizens", August 2024
  8. FBI IC3 Public Service Announcement I-061626, "Protect Your Property from Illegal Sales Through Parcel Owner Impersonation", June 16, 2026
  9. HousingWire, "FBI: Seniors lost $7.75B to cybercrime in 2025, a 59% jump", April 13, 2026 (from the IC3 2025 report)