Reston Real Estate: Scam Alert!

This is a sponsored column by Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. She writes twice weekly on Reston Now.

The real estate market has been moving at a fast clip since the end of the holiday season. All indications are for a strong spring market and a solid 2014.

All good news — except where there’s money being made there are people out trying to make a quick buck at your expense. Given how much it cost to get into a property it’s easy to get fooled into spending a little extra cash.

Here’s how the scam works. When you go to settlement on a home purchase one of the things you’ll be told – one of among many is that you’ll receive a copy of your deed in the mail in the next four to eight weeks following settlement; and that’s exactly how it works. About eight weeks after you move into your new home you’ll receive a copy of your deed in the mail.

See the Scammer letter here

What the scammers are doing is mailing you a very official looking document that’s called a DEED PROCESSING NOTICE that asks you to pay $83  in order to get a copy of your deed. If you read the document carefully it does contain disclaimers stating that they’re not affiliated with Fairfax County but  Wow- take a look at this document and tell me if it doesn’t look like this is the way you get your official deed? It contains all the correct property tax information, the land values, it has an official looking bar code. I’m sure it fools many, many people.

Thousands of pieces of property traded hands in Fairfax County last year, at $83 you could make a lot of money selling people something they’re going to receive for free.