Published on June 10, 2025 at 3:26 pm
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The St. Johns County Clerk of Court is warning residents about a somewhat obscure fraud scheme that is on the rise in Florida.
The FBI is calling property fraud one of the fastest growing white collar crimes, says St. Johns Clerk of Court Brandon Patty, and he wants to help people be vigilant.
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“What happens is that fraudsters or scammers will fraudulently create or have documents, deeds, recorded with the clerk’s office,” Patty tells Jacksonville Today. “We found horror stories of residents and homeowners that have their property taken out from underneath them.”
Patty says one way to stay on top of fraud is by signing up for property fraud email alerts with the county. (Since launching in 2018, nearly 30,000 residents have signed up for the free alert system, including 2,365 new users this year, according to the clerk’s office.) The email alerts work similarly to two-factor authentication by emailing you anytime paperwork with the county is filed in your name or your business’s name.
Ideally, that means you’ll just get confirmation when you file paperwork, “but there also might be something that’s recorded that you weren’t aware that was being recorded,” Patty says.
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If you receive an alert about a document you didn’t file, the Clerk’s Office can hand things over to law enforcement.
Patty says property fraud has been identified so far as a larger problem in South Florida, but there have been cases in St. Johns.
Fraudulent paperwork could lead to legal battles over your deed and cause stops that prevent you from selling your own property.
One local incident, Patty says, was when a woman was unable to sell her St. Augustine home because someone had forged her signature on a deed to sell the property.
“If we can help prevent one resident from having a headache or one resident from going through this legal struggle of getting a deed taken off their record, then that’s one additional resident we’ve helped,” he says.
To try and get the word out about the free service, the Clerk’s Office recently launched a video PSA produced by students at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Patty’s alma mater.
