zlacker

The best remedy for this is a Land Title Registry, which is a secure database of who owns a parcel of land, and a mandated verification of identity (VoI) standard. You no longer require title deeds, notaries, or title insurance. It isn't totally proof against sophisticated social engineering and gullibility of course, but it is a lot safer.

For registry titles you can also add caveats, that require sign-off from another party before transactions can occur. Unfortunately the contact address is still purely snail mail, no email or phone numbers. If you title has a bank mortgage that will appear as a caveat, requiring the debt to be discharged before it can be removed, and that also involves more ID verification.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrens_title

https://www.firstlinks.com.au/why-our-torrens-title-property...

>>angry_+(OP)
It's not the same as forgery, and maybe less worse, but it's not a panacea. It would still have issues as there is a lot of legacy stuff out there. We have a registry (based on the Cadastre system) and it's not uncommon for there to be disputes about the land borders which are only resolved by a judge and not simply by looking at the data. Maps are old, stuff gets lost, is poorly digitized, etc.

>>consp+M2
It's a long term project but if you enforce that new sales use the registry it already makes fraud much harder.

>>angry_+(OP)
In Poland all transactions related to housing or land must be notarized with both buyer and seller present, the notary is supposed to check their IDs. Sadly it happened a couple of times that scammers presented a fake or stolen ID to a notary who did not recognize the forgery. Nowadays you can mark your personal number (equivalent of SSN) in the central, governmental database as restricted. This prevents notarized transactions, bank loans or issuing SIM card duplicates in your name. When you need a loan or buy a property you just log in to the system (or open the governmental app) and uncheck the checkbox.