Congratulations. Your credit is in good shape for a new mortgage loan. Upon your request, the lender shares your credit score with you -- it's a respectable 700 points. You close the loan without incident and the home is yours.

Feeling relieved, you might be tempted to let down your financial guard at this point. Don't. Your financial identity is more at stake than ever after making a large purchase, especially that of a new home. Credit thieves, unscrupulous individuals or illegal (often underground) rings, target recent home purchasers to appropriate credit card, address, and/or driver's license identity.

Once stolen, your personal information can be sold to a variety of recipients including aliens abroad or to individuals who will pay handsomely for another person's credit-strong identity.

Why is closing a new home a potential threat to loss of identity and credit? For several good reasons.

First, you've just completed a major purchase that required a certain level of credit worthiness and, in most cases, won't be making another large credit-based purchase for a while. In other words, you're a credit-worthy person whose guard is down.

Second, the home purchase resulted in having your name and address made public record. If you paid cash for the house, the deed was recorded in the county where the property was located and your name became public record. If you secured a mortgage to purchase the home, the property was placed in your name with a lien created in favor of the lender. Here, too, your name and the legal description of the property becomes public record, listed in the area's newspaper responsible for posting public notification of recorded documents. This is the very reason you are inundated with credit card applications as well as second-mortgage solicitations immediately after closing on a home purchase.

Third, unless you "opted out" with the lender, declining his offer to have your name and financial profile shared with third-party institutions so they can offer products or services to you, your name is now fair game for solicitation. Since the "opt out" choice is a document that's part of the closing papers, it's discounted and often not even read. The consumer can, at any time, change the decision to have his name sold or shared by contacting the mortgage corporation's Compliance Officer.

The guidelines used must adhere to the federal government's Privacy Act, also called Regulation "P." You can learn more about your rights under this act by accessing the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Housing And Urban Development.

Observing a few guidelines when it comes to using and concealing your personal identification information helps, too.

1. Don't use any part of your Social Security number, house number, or date of birth when creating passwords or PINS (private identification numbers).

2. Memorize all passwords and PINS; never keep them in your wallet, purse, Rolodex or electronic organizer.

3. Shield the keypad when using ATMs or when placing calling card calls.

4. Ask business to substitute an alpha-numeric code as a password instead of your mother's maiden name as is usually the case.

5. Get your Social Security number out of circulation and release it only when necessary (i.e. for tax forms, employment records or stock transactions.) This includes having your Social Security number deleted from your checks. If a business requests your Social Security number, ask to use an alternate number.

You've worked hard to attain credit-worthiness. Work equally hard to make sure that it, and your personal identification, isn't appropriated and misused.

For more articles by Julie Garton-Good, please press here.

Published: April 27, 2001

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Julie Garton-Good, DREI “The Frugal HomeOwner™” As a syndicated newspaper columnist, author and international speaker, Julie Garton-Good DREI, C-CREC™, is called “America’s Home Affordability Expert”, addressing more than 25,000 persons annually on topics of real estate industry trends and home affordability. She is the author of five real estate books and is the sole two-time recipient of the international "Real Estate Educator of the Year" award from the Real Estate Educators Association. In 1997, The National Association of Realtors® nominated Julie as one of the fifty most influential people in the real estate industry. She shared the list with only three other women.