DeedLock Named Best Deed Fraud Prevention Service in the United States of 2026

A forged deed can take a family's home in the time it takes to stamp a piece of paper. Catching it fast is what makes the difference. That is the problem we built our company to solve, and this year it earned national recognition.

Best Of Best Review has named DeedLock: Best Deed Fraud Prevention Service in the United States of 2026. You can see the honor on the Best Of Best Review award page.

For a company founded in 2021 on Long Island, and built and run entirely in America, this one means a lot. It recognizes something we've believed from the start: homeowners deserve someone watching their title every single day, not just on the day they buy the house.

Why this award matters right now

Deed fraud is not a fringe crime anymore. The numbers from the past year make that clear.

• Real estate fraud losses jumped sharply. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center logged 12,368 real estate fraud complaints in 2025, with $275.1 million in reported losses, up from $173.6 million in 2024, according to HousingWire.
• Seniors are taking the biggest hit. In that same FBI data, older Americans made up 19% of real estate fraud victims but absorbed 44% of the reported dollar losses.
• Impersonation attempts have more than doubled. The American Land Title Association's 2026 Critical Issues Study, released September 14, found that 59% of title firms reported at least one seller impersonation attempt in the prior calendar year, up from 28% in 2024. The share reporting an attempt in just the prior month rose from 19% to 45%, HousingWire reported.
• Criminals are using AI. The same reporting notes that fraudsters now use AI voice cloning and spoofed phone numbers to pose as owners in real time. Vacant land and properties with absentee owners are favorite targets.

The schemes are organized and they cross state lines. Recently, a Texas man pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston to his role in a property impersonation scheme. The scheme targeted vacant parcels in four states and involved more than $1.5 million in fraudulent transactions, per Mortgage Professional America.

Lawmakers are trying to respond, but slowly. Twelve states now have dedicated deed theft laws, and 29 still have none.

So an award for deed fraud prevention isn't just a nice plaque. It's recognition in a category that has become urgent for millions of homeowners.

The gap at the county clerk's office

To see why our service exists, you need to know how a fraudulent deed gets into the public record in the first place.

When a deed is brought in for recording, the county office checks that the paperwork meets formatting requirements and that the fees are paid. Checking whether the signature is real is not its job. The California Department of Real Estate states plainly that the county recorder is not responsible for verifying the validity or authenticity of documents it records, and is not responsible for detecting a fraudulent document (California DRE consumer alert). As one California legal aid group puts it, the recorder has no obligation, or ability, to verify signature authenticity (Bay Area Legal Aid).

That's the gap scammers walk right through. A forged signature, sometimes with a corrupt or tricked notary, gets a fake deed recorded. Once it's on record, the criminal can use that apparent ownership to take out loans, sell the property, or move it into a shell company.

The clerk's office was never designed to stop that. We were. Our AI Title Surveillance® picks up exactly where the recording process leaves off. It watches every filing that touches your property and treats each one as something to check, not something to rubber-stamp.

How we closed that gap

We call our approach "the original AI Title Surveillance®." Here's what it does in practice.

Watching around the clock

Our platform monitors a property's public records 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It doesn't wait for you to check a website or open a piece of mail. When a deed, a lien, a mortgage or any other document is filed against your title, our system catches it.

Alerting you the moment something lands

Speed is everything with deed fraud. The longer a fake deed sits on record unnoticed, the more time a criminal has to borrow against the home or sell it to an unsuspecting buyer. Our alerts go out as soon as a filing appears, so you can act before the damage spreads.

Putting a team to work on recovery

An alert alone doesn't give you your home back. If fraud does happen, our U.S.-based restoration team gets to work to return ownership to the rightful owner.

Locking the off switch

This is a detail we're especially proud of. Cancelling coverage requires identity verification. A scammer who has stolen your personal information can't just log in and quietly turn off the protection that would expose them.

Proof at scale

Recognition is great. Real-world adoption matters more.

Gold Patrons protects more than 600,000 properties nationwide with 24/7 title surveillance and fraud remediation. When Armadillo, the home warranty company, wanted to add title protection for its members, it built DeedLock into every plan at every coverage tier at no extra cost. Armadillo called it a first for the home warranty industry (Armadillo).

Armadillo COO David Wellner explained the thinking behind that decision: "Title insurance protects you the day you buy your home, but it only looks backward."

That's the core idea in one sentence. Title insurance looks back at the history of a property up to closing. Our surveillance looks forward, every day after.

What this means for our partners

We work closely with lenders, title companies, real estate agents and attorneys. For them, this award adds weight to something they can already offer clients.

• Lenders protect the collateral behind the loans they write, long after funding.
• Title companies extend their relationship with a homeowner past the closing table.
• Real estate agents give clients a reason to remember them for years, and a real answer when sellers ask about impersonation scams.
• Attorneys give estate and real estate clients ongoing monitoring of assets they've worked hard to protect.

The ALTA study shows how much of the fraud fight now happens before and during the transaction. Our partners show their clients that the protection continues after the deal closes.

What homeowners should do today

Whether or not you're a customer, these steps lower your risk:

1. Know what's on your title. Pull up your property's recorded documents and confirm that everything listed is something you actually signed.
2. Pay extra attention to vacant land, rentals and second homes. Fraudsters favor properties where the owner isn't around to notice a "For Sale" sign.
3. Treat unexpected mail seriously. A loan statement you never applied for, a new property tax bill, or a notice from an unfamiliar title company can be early signs of fraud.
4. Check in on older relatives. With seniors taking nearly half of reported real estate fraud losses, a short conversation with your parents about their property could matter a great deal.
5. Get continuous monitoring. Fraud can be filed on any day of the year. Your protection should be running on all of them.

Thank you

This award belongs to our team, our partners, and the homeowners who trust us to watch over the biggest asset most families will ever own. We started Gold Patrons with a simple mission: protect people from today's thieves using tomorrow's technology. Being named the best deed fraud prevention service in the United States for 2026 tells us we're on the right track.

We're not slowing down. Criminals keep refining their methods, and so will we.

Ready to put award-winning protection on your home? Visit goldpatrons.com to enroll your property in AI Title Surveillance® today. If you're a lender, title company, agent or attorney, reach out to ask about partnering with us to protect your clients long after closing.

John Pignetti is the founder of Gold Patrons Data Technology and host of the Burn the Ships podcast.