Property Watch

As part of Register Eileen Duff’s ongoing commitment to providing exceptional customer service to the residents of Southern Essex County and his fight against property fraud, Register Duff is pleased to provide you with a state of the art, free Property Watch service. This service is being provided to help warn property owners of any fraudulent document recordings that may be recorded at the Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds.

For most of us, our home is our most valuable asset and Register Duff wants to help you protect that asset by providing you with a free method of being notified if a document is recorded with the Registry of Deeds that affects your property.

The Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds is the office tasked with maintaining public records and documents pertaining to real property in the thirty communities comprising the Southern Essex County of Massachusetts. The majority of these documents concern property ownership, such as deeds, mortgages, and foreclosure documents.

Why is the Property Watch so important?

It has been reported by the FBI that one of the quickest growing white collar crimes in America is property and mortgage fraud. This happens when a person knowingly records a fraudulent document making it appear that they own another person’s property or that the owner owes them money. Register Duff and the Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds has lead the charge nationally in the fight against the recording of fraudulent documents.

Unfortunately some states have seen the recording of fraudulent documents in order to steal people’s homes. Thankfully that has not happened here, and Register Duff hopes to keep it that way. This free Property Watch Service will assist all of us in preventing that from happening.

Other Registries also offer an alert service; however, our state-of-the-art Property Watch Service is the only service which allows you to view the document the same day it was recorded and print it at no cost.

How it works:

The Property Watch service will automatically send you an email at the end of the recording day if any of the following documents are recorded that match your name and address:

Deeds, Mortgages, Orders of Notice, Foreclosure Deeds, UCCs, Mechanics Liens, Statements, and Notices of Contract.

Federal and State Liens are not included because they are filed against any and all property owned in the county, and as such no specific address is indexed. If you would like to find out if there are any Federal or State Liens in your name, you can use the Search buttons on our home page, or you can call our Customer Service Department at 978-542-1704, or you can email them here.

If there is a recording that matches your name and address, you will receive an alert email with a link to the document for you to view, download, and print, along with what to do in case you suspect the document is fraudulent.

Please note: The accuracy of this service is dependent upon the accuracy of the information entered when signing up and upon the accuracy of the information contained in the documents submitted to the Registry of Deeds for recordation.

How to Sign Up or change your notifications:

Enter your email address in the box below (you will be asked to enter it a second time to confirm it is correct) and then click “Add Name and Address for Alert”, at which point a new box will appear where you can enter your name and address. You can add up to five different name and address combinations per email address. Once you are finished, click Submit. You will receive a confirmation email shortly thereafter. Going forward you will only receive an alert email if a document of the types mentioned above is recorded with both your name and address.

If you would like to change your notifications (change the address, add another name/address to be notified of, etc.) enter the address you used to sign up with, and your existing notifications will be shown for you to add, change, or delete.

 

If you would like to sign up but don't have an email address or if you have any other questions, please contact Customer Service at 978-542-1704, or email them here.