Protecting Vacant and Vacation Properties from Fraud

No one walks the lot, no one collects the mail, no one notices a 'For Rent' sign that didn't belong there. Every month of absence is a window. Insurance carriers price vacancy as a separate risk for the same reason.

Set up mail forwarding from the property to wherever you actually open mail. County notices, tax bills, and certified letters about filings all arrive by mail first. Have a local contact — a neighbor, property manager, or family friend — who can physically check the property monthly and forward photos. Search your address on rental sites monthly. Add continuous record monitoring so a fraudulent filing surfaces in hours, not the next time you visit.

If you list the property on Airbnb or Vrbo, the listing itself is a public signal of vacancy windows. Disable instant-book during gaps if you can, and check that no one has cloned your listing on a competing platform. Cloned listings are used both to steal deposits from prospective guests and to establish a false 'presence' that supports a fraudulent rental claim later.

Treat departure week like closing week: confirm property-tax address, update the homeowners insurance vacancy endorsement, schedule mail forwarding to your in-season address, and brief one local contact who can physically walk the property monthly. Send yourself a calendar reminder to pull the county record on the 1st of each month — it takes two minutes and closes the longest single discovery gap.