Protecting elderly homeowners from property fraud
A free guide for senior homeowners and the family members helping them, sourced from the FBI, DOJ, FTC, CFPB, and the Administration for Community Living. No product pitch: every action listed is something you can take today, for free, without us.
In the most recent annual reporting cycle, people age 60 and over reported the highest aggregate losses of any age group to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, and real-estate, rental, and confidence-fraud categories are consistently among the largest by dollar volume. The source is linked in the Sources section below.
Also on this site: Free Fraud Tools — every free check, one page, no account.
Skip to the four free actions that protect your home. Most take under 30 minutes total. None require buying anything.
Skip to the family caregiver checklist and the warning signs section. These are the things to watch for, in order.
Four patterns that target older homeowners specifically
Property fraud against seniors looks different from general identity theft. These four patterns appear over and over in federal advisories and state attorney general filings.
Reviewed May 2026 · Sources linked below each pattern
Long-tenure, paid-off homes
Per the FBI IC3 real-estate fraud PSAs, the American Land Title Association's seller-impersonation guidance, and state attorney general advisories on home-equity fraud targeting older homeowners.
Address-change exploits
Per USPS Office of Inspector General audit findings and AARP Fraud Watch Network advisories.
Unauthorized power of attorney
Per CFPB's "Managing Someone Else's Money" guides and the ABA Commission on Law and Aging.
Refinance & reverse-mortgage impersonation calls
Per the FTC's Protecting Older Consumers Reports to Congress and the FBI IC3 Elder Fraud Report.
What to do, in order, today
These four actions, in this order, prevent or surface the great majority of senior property-fraud incidents. None of them costs money.
Enroll in your county recorder's free document-alert program
~10 minutesWhy this is #1: a fraudulent deed cannot transfer ownership without being recorded at the county. The recorder's alert is the authoritative real-time signal: you'll know within hours, not months.
Set up USPS Informed Delivery + check the assessor mailing address
~5 minutesThen call the county assessor and confirm the mailing address on file. Many counties allow online verification. If a recent unauthorized address change appears, dispute it immediately and ask the recorder to add a fraud alert flag.
Designate a trusted contact on financial accounts
~10 minutes per accountFor brokerages and retirement custodians: FINRA Rule 4512 requires firms to ask for a trusted-contact designation when an account is opened or updated. If you've never been asked, call and request it.
For banks and credit unions: there is no federal requirement to offer a trusted contact, but many do voluntarily. Separately, the Senior Safe Act of 2018 (15 U.S.C. § 78q-1 note) gives banks, brokerages, and retirement custodians legal immunity for reporting suspected elder financial exploitation in good faith. Ask your institution: "Do you offer a trusted-contact designation for elder-financial-exploitation outreach?" It is free where offered.
Place a free credit freeze with all three bureaus
~15 minutesFreeze does not affect existing accounts, credit score, or government benefits. You can temporarily lift it any time online or by phone.
What to watch for
Any one of these can be benign on its own. Two or more in the same household, especially within a short window, is the pattern adult-protective-services teams ask about most often.
New, unfamiliar names appearing on county recorder filings or assessor mailings
A fraudulent deed or lien may already be recorded — run a Property Visibility Report immediately
Property tax bills, mortgage statements, or bank statements arriving late, opened, or stopping altogether
Mail redirection is how equity thieves cut off visibility before they act
A new power of attorney, deed, or refinance document the homeowner does not remember signing
Forged or coerced documents are the primary legal mechanism for equity theft
Unexplained large withdrawals, wire transfers, or new HELOC or reverse-mortgage activity
Financial exploitation often runs ahead of or alongside property fraud
A new helper, caregiver, online friend, or contractor the homeowner is reluctant to discuss
Isolation and undue influence are consistent precursors to deed fraud
Mail-forwarding confirmation letters from USPS that the homeowner did not request
An unauthorized change-of-address removes the homeowner's visibility before action is taken
Strangers visiting the home with documents to sign, especially with time pressure
Legitimate transactions never require same-day signing under pressure at the door
Letters from a title company, lender, or law firm the homeowner does not recognize
May indicate an unrequested transaction already in progress
The warning nobody wants to deliver
In the FBI IC3's elder-fraud reporting, romance and confidence fraud is consistently among the costliest crime types for adults 60 and older — hundreds of millions of dollars in reported losses in a single year, and the FBI notes most victims never report at all. The scam runs on secrecy and shame: the person being groomed hides the relationship, and the people who notice stay quiet because saying something feels like an accusation.
A new online-only companion no one has met in person or on live video.
Catfishers always have a reason a camera or a visit is impossible — deployment, an oil rig, overseas work.
New secrecy about the phone, or anger when someone asks about the friend.
Scripts coach victims that family "won't understand" — isolation is engineered, not incidental.
Unexplained wires, gift-card purchases, or new cryptocurrency accounts.
These payment rails are favored precisely because they're fast and nearly impossible to claw back.
Talk of a fiancé(e), inheritance, or investment tied to someone never met.
Long-running romance scripts escalate to marriage, emergencies, and "guaranteed" investments.
If you're worried about someone, the hardest part is usually saying it to their face. That conversation often ends the wrong way — the warning gets dismissed, the messenger gets blamed, and the scammer uses the argument as proof that "they're trying to keep us apart."
So we wrote the letter for you, and we'll deliver it without your name on it. It's gentle, respectful, and accusation-free — it simply gives the person the facts, the questions to ask themselves, and the free numbers to call. You can read every word below; the text can't be edited, so it can never be made to sound like it came from you.
The Catfish & Online Fraud Warning, as a full page
We also publish our complete Catfish / Online Fraud Warning Notice as a standalone education page — every warning sign, the steps to take before and after money moves, and the free national hotlines, in a format that's easy to read and easy to share. From there you can copy the link, or have us email or mail the notice for you.
Open the catfish education pageThe letter, exactly as delivered
A letter from someone who cares about you
Hello,
Someone who cares about you asked Home Fraud Defense — a fraud-education organization — to pass this letter along. They chose to stay anonymous, not out of secrecy, but because they did not want this to feel like an accusation or start an argument. There is no accusation here. Only concern, and some information worth a few minutes of your time.
Every year, many thousands of smart, kind, capable adults are contacted online by someone who is not who they say they are. It usually starts as friendship or romance — a message, a photo, kind words that arrive right on time. Over weeks or months it becomes something that feels completely real. Then, sooner or later, money enters the conversation: an emergency, a plane ticket, a customs fee, an investment opportunity, a gift card, a wire transfer.
The people who run these schemes are professionals. They do this all day, every day, to many people at once, reading from scripts that have worked before. Being fooled by one of them says nothing about your intelligence and everything about their skill. The FBI receives tens of thousands of reports of romance and confidence scams every year, and adults over 60 lose more money to them than any other age group — and those are only the losses that get reported.
Please consider these questions about anyone you have met online but never met in person:
- Have they avoided meeting in person or on a live video call, always with a good reason?
- Have they asked you to keep the relationship private from family or friends?
- Has money come up — sent, requested, or "invested" on your behalf?
- Did they profess strong feelings unusually quickly?
- Have they ever mentioned gift cards, wire transfers, or cryptocurrency?
If any of that feels familiar, please talk to one person you trust before sending anyone money — a family member, a friend, your bank, or one of the free numbers below. There is no rush. Anything real will still be real after a phone call. A five-minute conversation has stopped many of these schemes.
- AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline (free, all ages): 877-908-3360
- Eldercare Locator (U.S. Administration for Community Living): 1-800-677-1116
- FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center: type ic3.gov into your browser
- Federal Trade Commission fraud reporting: type reportfraud.ftc.gov into your browser
Nothing is being asked of you, nothing is being sold, and nobody is checking what you do next. Whoever asked us to pass this along simply wanted you to have the information — because you matter to them.
With respect and care,
— Someone who cares about you
Three ways to deliver it — all free, all anonymous
We never ask who you are. No account, no name, no email of yours. The emailed version comes from Home Fraud Defense's own address, identifies us as the sender, and includes an opt-out link — one letter per recipient per 30 days.
We email it anonymously
Enter only their email address. The letter arrives from Home Fraud Defense — your identity is never collected, stored, or mentioned.
Print & mail it yourself
The print version is our formal consumer-safety notice — a print-ready PDF with the same warning signs and free hotlines, no website header, no ads. Print it and mail it in a plain envelope; a physical letter is often taken more seriously than an email.
Open the letter (PDF)We mail it for you
No printer, or don't want your handwriting or postmark involved? Give us their mailing address and our team prints and mails the letter at no cost.
The emailed letter is deliberately plain: no urgent buttons, no links to click, Home Fraud Defense named as the sender of record, and federal hotline numbers the recipient can verify independently. Recipients can opt out of future letters with one click, and we honor opt-outs before every send.
Who to call, in order
Make these calls in this order. The first three are free, take a phone call, and create the official record other agencies need.
Use the NAPSA state directory to find your state's APS hotline. APS investigates suspected exploitation of vulnerable adults and is the entry point for everything else. Call within hours, not days.
Report a suspected fraudulent recording immediately. Ask for a fraud-alert flag on the parcel and request copies of any documents recorded in the last 12 months for review.
File an IC3 report for any fraud touching real estate, wire transfers, or online impersonation. IC3 routes to the appropriate FBI field office and creates the federal case record.
Most states have a dedicated elder-fraud unit. Filing here adds the case to state-level enforcement and is often the path to civil remedies.
If a fraudulent deed or unauthorized power of attorney has already been recorded, you need a real-property attorney. Many state bars maintain free or sliding-scale referral lists.
If you're helping an elderly parent
Print this page. Walk through the list together with your parent. The goal isn't to alarm; it's to set up the alerts and contacts that will surface a problem early if one ever happens.
- 1Run the free Property Visibility Report every quarter on your parent's home, your home, and any inherited property.
- 2Help enroll the property in the county recorder's free document-alert program. Register every name on title (the homeowner, spouse, any trust or LLC name).
- 3Set up USPS Informed Delivery for both your parent's mailing address and your own, so mail-tampering is visible.
- 4Confirm the assessor mailing address is correct and that no recent change-of-address has been filed without your parent's knowledge.
- 5Review any existing power of attorney with an elder-law attorney. Consider revoking and re-signing a narrow, current one.
- 6Place a credit freeze with all three bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion). It is free under federal law.
- 7Designate a 'trusted contact' on every brokerage and retirement account (FINRA Rule 4512), and ask each bank or credit union whether it offers the same option.
- 8Save the Adult Protective Services number for your state in your phone before you need it.
- 9Have the conversation about scams: naming the patterns reduces shame and increases reporting if something happens.
No signup required. The report shows what's publicly visible about a property.
A note on reverse mortgages
Legitimate Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECMs) are insured by HUD and originated by FHA-approved lenders. Reverse-mortgage scams, on the other hand, are one of the most damaging senior property-fraud categories, with losses that can exceed the home's full equity. Common red flags include cold calls, "free home" or "no payments ever" pitches, pressure to sign quickly, and any request to add a non-spouse to title before originating the loan.
The first 90 days after a transaction carry specific risks for elderly homeowners
If an elderly family member recently bought or sold a home, the weeks immediately after closing bring a concentrated wave of scam outreach: deed copy letters, fake escrow refunds, utility phishing calls, and more. These schemes are timed to arrive while the transaction is still fresh and the homeowner's guard is down. The post-closing fraud guide covers every pattern with exact timing and what to do.
See the post-closing fraud guideAuthoritative references used in this guide
Every claim and statistic on this page traces back to one of the federal or non-profit sources below. We do not cite our own data.
FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center · annual elder-fraud reporting
FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center · quitclaim-deed and seller-impersonation alerts
U.S. Department of Justice, Elder Justice Initiative
Federal Trade Commission · annual reports on fraud reported by adults 60+
Federal Trade Commission · annual aggregated consumer-fraud data
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau · Money Smart and educator tools for older adults
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau · agent-under-POA guides
U.S. Postal Service OIG · audit reports on COA fraud and identity verification
ALTA · industry advisories on title fraud and seller-impersonation schemes
American Bar Association · power-of-attorney and elder-law resources
AARP · consumer fraud advisories for older adults
Administration for Community Living · eldercare.acl.gov · 1-800-677-1116
USC Keck School of Medicine · funded by ACL
State-by-state APS reporting directory
This guide is educational and is not legal, financial, or medical advice. If a situation is unfolding right now, call Adult Protective Services in your state and, for any in-progress financial transfer, call the receiving institution to attempt a recall before calling other agencies.