FLORENCE, AZ – The Pinal County Assessor’s Office has launched a new initiative to combat deed fraud, a growing threat to property owners, especially seniors and those who own their homes outright. The Parcel Alert List (PAL) program, the first of its kind in Arizona, aims to provide an extra layer of protection against fraudulent property transfers.
“It’s becoming a bigger and bigger problem,” County Assessor Douglas Wolf told the Board of Supervisors on January 29. “We have a lot of properties that have no debt on them, no mortgage, and those are the people they target. It’s usually an older population that they try to fraud.”
Deed fraud occurs when someone illegally transfers ownership of a property without the rightful owner’s knowledge or consent, typically through forged documents. The county is taking a two-pronged approach to combat this issue: supporting legislation to make false title transfers a felony and implementing the new PAL program.
While the Recorder’s Office already offers an alert system that notifies property owners when a document is recorded, it does not stop fraudulent transfers. The PAL program enhances this protection by tracking properties by parcel number instead of last name, ensuring greater accuracy for those with common surnames. More importantly, it allows the Assessor’s Office to put a temporary hold on ownership changes to verify legitimacy before the transfer is finalized.
The voluntary, no-cost program requires property owners to register in person at the Assessor’s Office with proper identification. When the office receives a deed transfer or change of address request, they will contact the registered owner by phone or email to verify the transaction’s legitimacy. Property owners will have 30 to 60 days to respond before the deed is processed.
“What we’re going to do is we can’t stop or prevent deed fraud, but we’re going to try and slow it down,” Ellinwood said. “We’re going to try and have people say ‘Skip Pinal, that’s not the good County to do this in.'”
The program was inspired by a similar initiative in Mohave County, which began with address change verification and later expanded to include title transfers. Information about the PAL program will be distributed with notices of value to all Pinal County property owners in the coming weeks.
Property owners will be able to register for the PAL program at any Assessor’s Office location once the program launches. Registration is free and requires in-person verification with proper identification. For more details, property owners should watch for information in their upcoming notice of value mailings.
