In a few months, all homeowners in Cook County will have to give their thumbprints before they can sell their property.
Under a new state Notary Public Act, any Cook County deed transfer must include the thumbprint of the seller on a notarial record. The new thumbprint law, a three-year pilot project, will go into effect June 1, 2009.
The notary will be required to keep the thumbprint record for seven years. The purpose of the law is to prevent real estate fraud.
According to the law, sellers can be charged up to $25 to cover fingerprint processing costs.
There has been some criticism of the law.
- Attorneys won’t notarize deeds anymore because they don’t want the liability of keeping the thumbprints for seven years.
- Sellers would be forced to attend closings.
- Title companies would charge to create and store the record.
- Many homeowners do not have fingerprints on file anywhere so there would be no way to check for accuracy.
Today’s Closed Properties
1590 Clavey – Highland Park – $182,000 (short sale)
336 Onwentsia - Lake Forest – $860,000
Based on information from Midwest Real Estate Data for the period March 13, 2009 through March 14, 2009. Listing and solds by various Participants of MRED
For more real estate information, please call me at 847-512-2724 or email me at TPareti@rubloff.com
Filed under: News, Sellers Tagged: | cook county deed transfers, evanston closed propertiess, evanston real estate, fingerprint law, north shore, notary public act, real estate fraud, tim pareti
