EquityProtect announced it has surpassed $1 billion in protected property value — a milestone that arrives as FBI data shows real estate fraud losses topping $173 million in a single year and as millions of homeowners across 16 states remain without any dedicated deed-fraud law to protect them.
The billion-dollar threshold reflects properties of owners who have used EquityProtect’s SmartPolicy technology to place a recorded legal encumbrance directly on their title — creating a cryptographically verified lock that cannot be bypassed by a forged signature, a fabricated notarization, or a stolen identity. It is not a monitoring service. It is not an alert. It is a technology that puts the power to protect a property's title directly in the hands of the person who owns it.
“Reaching $1 billion in protected value is meaningful, but it is also a sobering number,” EquityProtect CEO Ryan Marshall, said in a release. “It means that a billion dollars’ worth of property equity is now genuinely protected — and it reminds us how much of America’s real estate wealth is still completely exposed. We built SmartPolicy because monitoring services are ineffective; prevention is the only protection that actually works. Homeowners should be able to lock their own title today; the same way they lock their front door.”
The scale of EquityProtect's growth reflects a crisis that is accelerating rather than stabilizing. According to FBI data and research tracked by the EquityProtect team:
• 9,359 real estate fraud complaints were filed with the FBI in 2024, representing $173.6 million in losses in a single year;
• 58,000-plus victims reported real estate fraud between 2019 and 2023, with combined losses of $1.3 billion;
• Sixteen states have no deed-fraud-specific law on the books — leaving millions of property owners with zero statutory protection;
• Forty-four percent of all dollar losses from real estate fraud are absorbed by seniors, despite seniors representing 19 percent of victims;
• Reversing a fraudulent title costs victims an average of $50,000–$150,000 in legal fees, money most families do not have; and
• One in three title companies experienced at least one seller impersonation fraud attempt in 2024, per NAR data.
County recorders across the United States process nearly 300,000 documents per day. They are legally required to record any document presented in proper form. They cannot verify filer identities in real time. A fraudulent deed — forged signature, fabricated notarization, stolen identity — can be recorded within minutes of submission. Most victims don't discover the fraud until they attempt to sell or refinance, often years after the crime occurred.
Free county notification systems — the services most states point homeowners toward — notify a homeowner after a document or financial transaction has already been recorded against their property. EquityProtect’s preventative system works differently by requiring verified homeowner authorization before a voluntary financial transaction — such as a sale, refinance, or HELOC — can move forward, effectively stopping criminals from completing the transaction.
EquityProtect has helped property owners across the country protect themselves from fraud. In California and Nevada, EquityProtect's real-time listing monitoring caught unauthorized property listings within hours — twice on a vacant lot in San Luis Obispo offered without the owner's knowledge, and on a personal residence listed by someone using a fabricated ID. All of these fraud attempts were caught before a single transaction could close.
“Title fraud doesn't send a warning — it moves quietly through recorder offices and listing platforms while families assume their equity is safe,” Marshall added. “That assumption is exactly what fraudsters count on. SmartPolicy exists to replace it with something real: a lock that only the owner can open.”