Peifer said the commercial warned Americans to “lock in” their property titles or risk seeing their land stolen from under their feet.
“It was a scare tactic to work everyone up,” Peifer said, adding that there’s no actual way to “lock down” a deed. “But I knew right away our phones (at the Recorder of Deeds Office) would be ringing about it.”
In Somerset County, where deeds are only recorded in her office – and original documents must be present to document a change – Peifer said it isn’t easy for someone to forge their way into stealing property.
But a new program that her office is adding is aimed at giving Somerset County property owners “peace of mind” to track their deeds and mortgages, regardless.
Through an addition to an ongoing contract with Lebanon County-based Landex, a fraud and notary alert system is being added that will enable people with mortgages, deeds and similar documents in Somerset County to be notified if any changes are made to those documents.
“They can sign up by submitting their name, and then if any changes are made to their documents, they will be notified by text, by email or both,” Peifer said.
A fraud alert enabling registered notaries to receive notifications when their names – and seals – are recorded is also part of the service.
Peifer outlined the program to the Somerset County commissioners last week, saying the service will cost her office $6,000 for setup and an annual $2,500 support fee. But it won’t cost taxpayers a dime, she said.
Both costs will be covered by the Recorder of Deeds Office’s automation fund, Peifer said. The fund accumulates year-round through $3 fees that the office charges to process documents, she said.
Somerset County’s commissioners praised Peifer’s efforts to help protect county property owners – and for working out a way to cover the cost.
Peifer said larger counties in Pennsylvania have already added the Landex service and have spoken well of it.
Scams targeting vulnerable property owners – including retirees – have risen in recent years. In 2025, a Houston man was sentenced to eight years in prison after he created a fictitious company to forge paperwork to acquire properties as part of a $15 million scheme to acquire lots in an affluent neighborhood, investigators said.
While there’s likely no 100% foolproof way to prevent forgery attempts, the county’s policy of only recording transfers in house and the Landex software are both additional deterrents, Peifer said.
The Somerset County Recorder of Deeds Office has a multi-step policy to verify that deed transfers are recorded accurately, which includes double-checking information the morning after documents are received, Peifer said.
But once they are entered into the system, that same system will send out an automated notice to any property holder or notary who signed up for the Landex service, she said, meaning it’ll be almost instantaneous.
“There’s no 100% way to prevent fraud,” Peifer said, referencing one Somerset County case in which a relative of a property owner was able to use documents to successfully get a property transferred into their name. “But if it happens, you don’t want to find out six months later.”
“With this service, if something happens, you are going to know right away,” she said.
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