America’s fragmented land registries are fueling fraud — and the costs are rising
A silent yet sizeable hurdle continues to throw a wrench in the gears of many property transactions; extreme geographic and technological fragmentation of land registries.
With approximately 3,200 municipalities each maintaining their own independent registry, the American real estate ecosystem remains a patchwork of information that creates significant barriers for title insurers, homeowners and lenders.
Zach Kammerdeiner, chief of innovation and strategy at CATIC, sees this landscape as one ripe for modernization, while remaining grounded in realities of the industry.
“One of my mantras over the past few years has been, ‘cheaper, faster, and more secure,’” he told HousingWire. “This is the essence of what we are endeavoring to accomplish at CATIC, and beyond, when it comes to improving our processes and workflows. We strive to deliver products and services that are safer and more efficient for consumers and title agents than what currently exist today.
“From my perspective, the same goal should be true when we talk about leveraging emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain to improve land registries across the United States.”
The high cost of inconsistency
The current system relies on a decentralized network of recorders where data standards vary wildly from one county to the next.
This fragmentation is not merely an administrative headache; it carries a massive financial burden. Because many localized systems are not integrated or standardized, identifying risks like forgery or seller impersonation becomes significantly more difficult.
Recent data illustrates the severity of this issue.
According to a 2025 analysis by Milliman and the American Land Title Association (ALTA), fraud and forgery claims make up a significant portion of total dollars spent by title insurers on claims expenses and losses.
The report notes that the average cost for such a claim in a purchase transaction is approximately $143,000 — while refinance transactions jump to $207,000.
Kammerdeiner noted that success in overcoming these hurdles must be measurable.
“If we deploy these technologies, and at a future date, we are able to look back and observe that we can close real estate transactions more cheaply and efficiently [than today], that would be a measure of success,” he says. “Likewise, if we can say in the future that AI and blockchain are effective at mitigating the risk of seller impersonation fraud, that would also be a success metric.”
The rise of AI-powered impersonation
While the industry struggles with legacy paper systems, bad actors are rapidly adopting cutting-edge tools.
Tory Ricalis, CEO and co-founder at Titl, warned that the technological gap between criminals and regulators is widening.
“The criminals are often way ahead in terms of the use of technology than where a specific industry is,” he says. “We’ve seen various instances of people assuming people’s identity via AI, their voice, sorting documents, passports, driver’s licenses, signatures, you name it. That is all very real, and it’s occurring daily, and we’re going to see it more and more.”
Ori Ohayon, co-founder and chief economic officer at Titl, adds that the reliance on paper-based documentation makes these crimes harder to track.
“From what we’ve heard, the majority of people who interact with these issues are underwriters,” he says. “But also from what we’ve heard, these are daily occurrences with attempted fraud, with identity theft, with wire fraud. It’s becoming more and more common.”
Titl recently raised $2.5 million in seed funding to expand its AI- and blockchain-driven title verification platform beyond Florida.
While paper-only registries are now a minority, they still exist in many pockets — requiring physical visits to check a deed.
Liability, path to national standards
As the industry eyes a shift toward automated or centralized registries, a critical question arises; who is at fault if the technology falters?
Critics worry that moving away from human-led government recording could create a liability vacuum. Kammerdeiner suggests that the transition will likely see regulators looking toward the controllers of the tech systems.
“This is something that we are considering at CATIC as we deploy innovative systems and workflows,” he says. “At the end of the day, AI and blockchain systems should not be a replacement for human judgment. That is why I envision a future where people work alongside AI and blockchain technologies in order to enhance the work we do, making it cheaper, faster and more secure.”
Achieving a unified system is a daunting task, given that thousands of counties have spent decades building their own unique infrastructures.
Kammerdeiner believes the path forward lies in private-public collaboration — rather than a top-down government mandate.
Organizations like the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization and ALTA are already working toward a digital settlement ecosystem, he adds.
Ohayon argues that blockchain could provide the necessary architecture for this unification without disrupting the underlying legal authority of municipalities.
“The governance and the process would remain exactly the same,” he says. “The municipalities are responsible for filing all their own documents. They upload everything the same way they would do it. The value-add of a blockchain is that everything is now centralized, and there’s a uniform standard of reporting.
“One of the biggest reasons why there’s opportunities for fraud is because everything is inconsistent and it’s fractional across every county, township and so on. It’s broken up. The strongest way to unify it is put everything into one place using the same standard.”
Bridging the silo gap
A major source of inefficiency is the lack of communication between different government offices — with property appraisers, tax collectors and county clerks often operating in silos with no automated information sharing.
Ricalis noted that a unified registry would eliminate the need for title abstractors to manually cross-reference multiple databases.
“Creating a unified digital land registry would help mitigate any issues regarding fraud and increase efficiencies across the board,” he says. “If I go into the county clerk’s office and file a deed or a change of deed, you’re not really being notified as the seller or the homeowner. You’re not being notified until weeks later, months later or when you go to sell your home.”
According to Ohayon, the combination of AI and blockchain provides a “clean and secure” solution.
“One of the biggest things with AI is its ability to clean up and analyze data,” he says. “Blockchain secures it. So, if we had one centralized place where documents were uploaded, AI could analyze, blockchain could secure it and anytime there’s a change, the relevant parties would be notified. Fraud is blocked, essentially, the moment it’s attempted. It creates a lot of opportunities and kills a lot of the risks.”
Testing over speculation
While some argue blockchain is overhyped or presents new privacy risks, experts argued that the industry cannot afford to dismiss potential fraud solutions.
Kammerdeiner emphasized the need for empirical testing over speculation.
“Let’s test the technology, collect performance data and weigh the risks versus the rewards of adopting emerging technologies,” he says. “We have the brains as an industry to do this analysis and lead the way. While some new risks may emerge, we may gain greater protection against existing risks that, left unchecked, are major threats to the title insurance business.”
Ricalis adds that the goal is not to eliminate jobs in the land registry and recording space, but to evolve them.
“AI cannot make executive or management decisions,” he says. “There still should be a human in the loop when reviewing a mortgage document, a deed, a title, whatever it may be. AI just helps. It can scan, analyze and then spin that information out to the necessary parties to go, ‘Yeah, looks good. Here’s my stamp of approval.’”