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Check your mortgage for errors prior to selling your home.
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Check your mortgage for errors prior to selling your home

Home buying and selling season is upon us. Many of you may be organizing your paperwork and visiting a real estate professional to prepare for a downsize, upgrade, or unfortunately for some of us - a quick sale due to job loss, a divorce, or financial difficulties. Is your paperwork ready for a smooth transaction?

Did you know that often times when a homeowner prepares to sell his/her home, they find errors on their mortgage or real estate transaction? Common discrepancies in public records are found at the county level and can include the wrong purchase price listed or the incorrect mortgage type listed. Additionally, some homeowners may discover they have additional liens on their home they were unaware of, which can create headaches, more paperwork, and a BIG delay in selling their home. A smart, simple security procedure that ANYONE can do, is to keep an eye on their own public records.

A revolutionary new Web site, WatchIllinois, allows you keep an eye on your own public records, by watching your name, properties, or business name, and automatically alerting you if a new public record is filed under your criteria. Simply sign up for the criteria you want to "watch", and the Web site will e-mail you weekly, letting you know if new public records are filed in the Illinois court system, based on your criteria. For as little as $9.95 a year, you can keep an eye on your own public records.

Just like checking your credit report, checking your public records can help prevent errors and even identity theft of your good name. More importantly, it offers peace-of-mind that your public records, such as property transactions, mortgages, foreclosures, divorces, bankruptcies, and more - have been CORRECTLY filed.

So when you are shopping around for homes, or thinking about selling, think FIRST about reviewing your own public records for errors.