Buying a new home can be stressful. There’s much more to it than simply finding a house and exchanging money with the seller. The process can be long and drawn out, and without the help of professionals, new home buyers can run into all kinds of problems. In fact, there are even escrow companies that can’t be trusted. These companies themselves can scam new home buyers. That’s why finding an escrow company with a solid track record is so important. Let’s take a look at how a reputable title and escrow company can help prevent home buyers from fraud.

Here are 5 benefits of using an escrow company as protection against fraud:

• Knowledge – This is probably the most important benefit with using an escrow company as protection against fraud. An escrow company that has been in business for a while has extensive knowledge about the real estate business and they know what to look for when it comes to finding fraud. Having this knowledge backing your transaction provides piece of mind and can help keep buyers safe from fraud.

• Security – Very few people would consider closing a real estate deal without using the services of a neutral third party known as an escrow holder. The risk would be too great. An escrow officer holds all of the documents and money in an escrow account and ensures everything is recorded as required. The escrow officers ensures that all obligations are met by both the seller and buyer before and documents (title and deed) or money exchanges hands. An escrow company can hold the documents and money and distribute without either party having to trust the other. This is a clear advantage to using an escrow company to help prevent against fraud. Additionally, your personal information, which is necessary for real estate transactions, will be kept secure when using a reputable escrow service. This information includes bank account numbers, social security numbers, and credit and loan account numbers.

• Wire Transfer Fraud Protection – Wire fraud is one of the big ways home buyers can have their money stolen. Using an escrow company and doing all of your business through a brick and mortar location can protect against wire fraud. An escrow company that has a location you can call or visit means you will be less likely to lose money through wire transfers. If you are doing business with a reputable escrow company, always call the company to make sure any digital information you receive is legitimate. Your escrow company will always have the latest information available and will be able to let you know if you are getting messages that look legitimate but are, in fact, attempts to fraud you.

• Information/Organization – A great benefit of using an escrow company is that you will always know where you are in the escrow process. There are a lot of obligation required from both the buyer and the seller that need to be met before a closing can occur. An escrow company will provide an escrow agent that tracks these tasks and obligations and knows when they need to be accomplished. You can always find out what you need to do to help move the escrow process along. You can also ask questions to learn more about anything you are not clear about. Having this kind of monitoring going on behind the scenes helps ensure there is nothing going on that would constitute a red flag for fraud.

• Party Verification – A reputable escrow company verifies the validity of all parties involved in the real estate transaction. This ensures that that buyer and seller are both real people, not part of a fraudulent scam to sell real estate that can’t legally be sold. A reputable escrow company has a team of professionals that will look for red flags that indicate one of the parties involved in the transaction are up to something.

Of course, all of this hinges on finding an escrow company you can trust. As mentioned earlier, there are escrow companies set up to scam home buyers and sellers. That’s why choosing a company like Key Title & Escrow is so important.

At Key Title & Escrow, we know what to look for when it comes to protecting sellers and buyers from fraud. We have over 21 years in the business. We’ve built a solid, trustworthy relationship with other trusted professionals in the business and we’ve built a reputation as leaders in the real estate closing industry. At key Title and Escrow, we bring our customers a range of title and escrow services, property title searches, judgment and lien searches, Florida title insurance, record owner searches, and residential title services. This means you can get everything done in one place. Our trusted professionals have the knowledge to take you through your closings effectively, efficiently, and free of the fear of fraud.