How to Protect Your Arizona Property from Impersonation Sales: A Complete Guide to the ERAS Property Transaction Alert System

Suzy’s Real Estate Quick Take

Your house is sitting there perfectly fine, and you’ve never planned to sell it — but could someone impersonate you as the owner and try to sell the property? The answer is: yes, this is indeed one form of real estate fraud worth watching out for.

To add one more layer of fraud protection, the Arizona Department of Real Estate (ADRE) launched the Early Real Estate Sales Alert System, or ERAS.

Its purpose: while certain property transactions are still in the pending sale stage, give registered owners a chance to receive an early warning.

What Is ERAS?

You can simply think of ERAS as:

One more early warning before a property transaction is completed.

Owners can register the properties they want monitored in ERAS for free. Registration information can include:

• Property owner name
• Property address
• Assessor Parcel Number (APN)
• Email
• Mobile phone number

When an escrow officer enters an in-progress property transaction into ERAS and the system matches the name, address, or APN you registered, the system may notify you via email or SMS text message.

If you receive a notice and realize: “Wait — I’m not selling this house at all,” you can use the method in the notice to report to the Arizona Department of Real Estate that the transaction may not have been authorized by you.

Why Should Arizona Homeowners Pay Attention to ERAS?

One technique used in deed fraud, title fraud, or seller impersonation fraud is scammers impersonating the true owner.

For example, someone might use:

• Forged identification documents
• Stolen personal information
• Fake email addresses
• Fake phone numbers
• Forged signatures
• Impersonating the true owner

to attempt to sell or transfer property that doesn’t belong to them.

If the true owner has no idea a transaction is underway and only discovers it after documents have entered later stages, it can be much more troublesome to resolve.

The value of ERAS is this: if that pending sale was entered into the system, it’s one more chance for the true owner to discover the anomaly early.

How Does ERAS Work?

The process can be understood roughly as follows:

1. The owner registers for free first

The owner goes to ADRE’s ERAS website and registers their contact information and the property information they want monitored.

2. The escrow officer enters the pending sale

When a property transaction is underway, the participating escrow officer enters the relevant pending sale information into the system.

3. The system compares

If the transaction information matches the name, property address, or APN the owner registered beforehand, the system may issue an alert.

4. The owner confirms the transaction

If it is indeed your own transaction, there’s no need to be nervous about receiving the alert. But if you have no sale of the property at all, you should immediately investigate further and report it upon receiving the notice.

How Is ERAS Different from County Title Alert?

If you live in Greater Phoenix, you may also have heard of Maricopa Title Alert. The two services look similar, but they notify at different points in time.

ADRE ERAS

Leans toward: advance warning at the pending sale stage.

Maricopa Title Alert

Leans toward: monitoring of recorded documents.

The Maricopa County Recorder offers a free Title Alert. After registering, whenever a document is recorded by the Recorder under the name you’re monitoring, you can receive email or text notifications.

So you can simply understand the two as:

• ERAS: watch for “a sale in progress.”
• Title Alert: watch for “documents already recorded.”

ERAS + Title Alert: One More Layer of Protection

If your property is in Maricopa County, consider learning about both of these free tools rather than choosing just one. Because:

• ERAS provides alerts at the pending sale stage.
• Maricopa Title Alert provides notifications at the recorded document stage.

Used together, they increase your chances of discovering unusual activity. However, neither should be understood as complete title insurance or a “100% fraud-proof” system.

ERAS Cannot Guarantee Stopping All Property Fraud

This point is very important. ERAS is a voluntary, free fraud mitigation tool. It is not a complete registry of all Arizona property transactions, nor does it include every property transaction in the state.

Therefore:

Not receiving an ERAS notice doesn’t mean your property is absolutely free of anything unusual.

It’s better suited as: one more reminder, one more confirmation — not as a replacement for other property and title safety measures.

Which Owners Should Especially Consider Using It?

Actually, any Arizona property owner can consider registering. But if your property falls into the following situations, it’s even more worth learning about these alert tools:

• Rental properties
• Second homes
• Long-term vacant homes
• Land
• Owners who don’t live in Arizona long-term
• Properties with no mortgage
• Properties whose County Recorder records are rarely checked proactively

For these kinds of properties, if something unusual really happens, the owner sometimes doesn’t notice right away.

What to Do If You Receive an Unfamiliar ERAS or Title Alert Notice?

If you haven’t sold, transferred, or signed any property documents at all but receive a related notice, don’t just ignore it. You can first:

1. Confirm whether the notice source is an official system
2. Don’t click links in emails of unknown origin
3. Check the property’s current recorded documents
4. Contact the title/escrow company handling the transaction (if known)
5. Confirm through official channels with ADRE, the County Recorder, or relevant law enforcement

The earlier an anomaly is discovered, the better the chance of handling it before things get more complicated.

One More Notice, One More Confirmation

A property is usually one of a family’s most important assets.

Today’s real estate fraud isn’t just fake rental ads or fake emails — identity theft, deed fraud, and seller impersonation are all risks owners should pay attention to.

ERAS can’t replace complete title protection, nor can it guarantee stopping all fraud. But if a free official alert tool can give you one more chance to discover an anomaly, it’s worth spending a few minutes to learn about and set up.

A real estate advisor who understands homes — and who understands the value of real estate investment.