In Cook County, Illinois, a new law starts on June 1. After that date, not only will you be required to provide your fingerprints when you check into the county jail, but you will be required to provide your fingerprints to sell a home as well: [Thanks L!]
CHICAGO (CBS) ― Real estate certainly has its risks and fraud is a growing problem, but now there’s a new law that’s supposed to protect buyers. As CBS 2′s Mike Puccinelli reports the new law will also place an unusual burden on the seller.
Fingerprinting is something we often associate with crime. So the fact that Cook County home sellers–and homeowners across the state–will soon have to provide a thumb print left some people shocked.
"I wouldn’t like that at all. I don’t think that’s necessary," said Chicagoan Donald Hayes.
"I don’t know what I think about that. Not very good, I think, said Jenny Armstrong of Lake Villa.
The new law, which is set to go into effect June 1, 2009, will force anyone selling property in Cook County to provide a thumbprint from their right hand.
"No more so than any law abiding citizen walking down the sidewalk should be fingerprinted; just for selling my house, that’s ridiculous," said Gerald Cain of Land Acquisitions, Inc.
Cain has been in the real estate consulting business for decades. He says the law is intrusive and threatens to create fraud when it’s designed to prevent it.
Cain has been notarizing documents for more than a quarter century, but he says unless the fingerprint rule is revoked, he plans to get out of the business.
"I would probably just quit; liability for me is too much," Cain said.
You have to wonder if Cook County has really had problems with people with fake ID selling properties that are not theirs.
Clearly, mortgage fraud has been a big problem, but the fraud I have seen would not have been prevented by providing a fingerprint. Rather, the fraud has involved misstating the value of the property, or misstating the assets and income of the buyer.
Why invade the privacy of home sellers with a law that is unlikely to reduce fraud?
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Will this now be something that has to be verified before title insurance can be issued? And what must a person lacking a right thumb do to legally purchase a home? What protections are in place to keep this datum from being obtained by the public? Or is this now something about you that is public knowledge. What then is to prevent someone from making a copy of your thumb print off public records and leaving the image at a crime scene? Do Cook County officials ever THINK?
i don’t know? i wouldn’t rule out quite a bit of identity fraud in this whole mess? i’m not sayin i’m a fan of it, but if there was a question down the road then they can definitively ID the seller. again….not a fan of this….but i’ve never understood the whole fear of “them” knowing who you are unless you are hiding for some reason. no matter really….some day we’ll all have microchips placed in us at birth so they can track us…lol
I would think fingerprinting the buyer would be just as helpful (if not more so) in decreasing fraud. Each time I renew my drivers license they scan my thumbprint. I’ve even been printed at my own bank, by tellers I know by name. I’ve just gotten used to it now, and wonder sometimes if I should actually be grateful.(Though I doubt seriously that MY best interests are their primary motive.)
I have no problem given em the finger!
When Mr. Twist and I adopted our youngest, we were required to submit our fingerprints. I could understand that one- keeping criminals from adopting babies is a good thing.
We live in a world now however, where we are surrounded by cameras, tracked by our tires, and fingerprinted for routine transactions.
I tried to find any background on this bill- some instance where fraud could have been prevented if only the seller had been fingerprinted. If anyone else runs across it, let me know. In the meantime, I doubt it will do much, and I don’t see why people should lose a little more privacy and pay a little more for a program of questionable worth.
I am not for fingerprints, however wouldn’t it make more sense for the buyer to have his/her finger prints taken???
Igor has a knack of figuring things out and he says RIDICULOUS