There are people who are trying to file paperwork in county clerks’ offices across the state, with the intent of taking away your home.
Kaufman County Clerk Laura Hughes said she has already seen one such example here. One man has tried to file paperwork on a home claiming it is abandoned and is attempting to use a Texas law from the 1800s to support that claim.
Hughes said there’s a way to see if someone is filing paperwork on anything with your name on it.
It’s called “Fraud Guard.”
“We’re the first one in Texas, with Tyler Technologies, to get Fraud Guard,” Hughes said. “We’re excited about that.”
A link on the county clerk’s website — www.kaufmancountyclerk.com — takes you to the site where you can sign up “alert names.” The names the resident wants to get alerts on, any time there’s paperwork filed that is associated with one of the names.
On the county clerk’s website, there is a selection “County Records Search”. Click and it will take the viewer to countygovernmentrecords.com.
On that site, select “Texas” and, on the next screen, the user will have to register before proceeding to a screen that will allow a selection of “Kaufman County.”
From there, the site is user friendly as it takes the interested resident step-by-step through the setup process.
Kaufman County information runs from January 1968 to the present.
Should someone file paperwork connected with an alert name, the system sends out an email notice.
Hughes said she could put in all versions of her name, from her full name to variations like “L. Hughes” and others.
And when an alert goes out, “you’d know, within 24 hours, that there was, for example, a lien filed under your name.”
Paperwork in the county clerk’s office has to be filed within that 24-hour window.
In the case that Hughes has already seen in Kaufman County, the owner of a property moved in with an adult child, then there were some questions about the property he owned and had been living in. Legal advice had him not to pay the property taxes until legal questions regarding clear title are settled.
Another man has attempted to file paperwork to claim it as abandoned, and Hughes office caught it and tracked down the property owner.
A hearing about that matter has been scheduled in a Kaufman County district court.
Hughes said that Collin, Tarrant and Dallas counties have similar systems — through other technology providers — to protect their citizens. She said attempts to seize property in this manner are on the rise. Hughes said it has been a subject of conversation across the state as county clerks have gone on alert against the attempts.
The process to take over property that is being tried, in order to be legal, still has to go through the court system in order to be legal. So, Hughes said, these are, in essence, attempts to file paperwork and go around the court system.
And it’s illegal, she said.
“Basically, what we’re trying to do is stop the filing of what we feel are fraudulent documents,” Hughes said.