Home Title Lock Cost (2026): What $199/Year Actually Gets You

By Mo Ayadi, Founder of Title Barrier | Updated February 11, 2026

Home Title Lock costs between $199 and $239 per year for a single property, depending on which payment plan you choose. That's the quick answer. The more useful answer is what that money actually buys, what it doesn't buy, and whether you can get the same thing for less — or free.

Disclosure: I'm the founder of Title Barrier, a competing property protection service. I have a financial incentive to make Home Title Lock look bad. I'm going to try not to do that. Everything in this article is sourced so you can check the facts yourself. I'll also be honest about where Home Title Lock has advantages over my own service.

Home Title Lock Pricing: Verified Breakdown

Home Title Lock offers three payment plans. The service is the same regardless of which plan you choose — the only difference is how you pay.

Pricing sources: Home Title Lock's pricing page, confirmed by Comparitech's independent review and Checkbook.org's consumer reporting. Some third-party sources list slightly different rates (Clark.com reports $227.40/year for the annual plan), which may reflect promotional pricing or recent changes. The prices above come from HTL's own website as of early 2026.

Important: Each subscription covers one property. If you own multiple properties, you need a separate subscription for each:

• 2 properties: $398–$479/year
• 3 properties: $597–$718/year
• 4 properties: $796–$958/year

This single-property pricing is a meaningful cost consideration for landlords, investors, or anyone with a vacation home.

What You Get for $199/Year

Home Title Lock provides three things, which the company brands as "TripleLock Protection."

County record monitoring. The service monitors your county recorder's office for new documents filed against your property — deeds, liens, mortgages, judgments, and similar filings. When something is recorded, you receive an alert.

Urgent alerts. You get email and text notifications when changes are detected. The timing depends on how quickly your county processes and publishes filings. According to customer reviews on the BBB, alert times can range from same-day to several weeks after filing.

Restoration assistance. If fraud is detected, Home Title Lock provides access to a restoration team backed by what the company describes as up to $1 million in covered expenses. This is the most valuable component of the service — and the one that differentiates it from free alternatives.

What You Don't Get

This is where the cost analysis gets important, because what the service doesn't do affects whether it's worth the price.

It doesn't prevent fraud. Home Title Lock alerts you after a document has been recorded. By that point, the fraudulent deed, lien, or mortgage is already in the public record. The FTC stated this directly in its August 2024 consumer alert: the service notifies you after a title transfer has happened, not before.

It doesn't monitor real estate listings. If someone lists your home for sale on Zillow, Realtor.com, Craigslist, or MLS systems, Home Title Lock won't detect it. Many fraud schemes start with unauthorized online listings before any county documents are filed.

It's not insurance. Despite the word "Lock" in its name, this is a monitoring subscription, not an insurance product. The FTC specifically flagged this distinction. There is no insurance policy backing the service. The restoration benefit covers assistance and expenses, not a guaranteed payout.

It doesn't include legal representation. If you need an attorney to file a quiet title action to restore your ownership, those fees are your responsibility. According to Jones Property Law, uncontested quiet title actions cost $1,500–$5,000 in legal fees. Contested cases can cost significantly more.

The Free Alternative That Does the Same Core Thing

Before evaluating Home Title Lock's pricing against other paid services, it's worth knowing that many counties offer the same basic county record monitoring — for free.

County recorder offices across the country have launched property alert programs that email or text you when documents are filed against your property. This is functionally the same service as Home Title Lock's core monitoring component.

The FTC acknowledged this directly in its 2024 consumer alert, noting that many counties offer free notification services providing similar alerts. Clark Howard's consumer advocacy site goes further, reporting that county registries are "a very effective tool to thwart home title theft" and recommending homeowners sign up for these free programs before paying for monitoring.

How to check if your county offers free alerts: Visit your county recorder's website and search for "property alert," "property fraud alert," or "document notification." Registration typically takes a few minutes.

What free county alerts cover: Notifications when deeds, liens, mortgages, or other documents are filed against your property.

What free county alerts don't cover: Restoration assistance. This is the one meaningful thing Home Title Lock provides that free county alerts do not. If you're evaluating whether to pay $199/year, the restoration benefit is really what you're paying for.

How Home Title Lock Compares to Other Paid Services

If you've decided you want paid protection beyond free county alerts, here's how the options compare.

Identity Theft Protection Suites (LifeLock, Aura, Identity Guard)

Services like Norton LifeLock, Aura, and Identity Guard bundle title monitoring with broader identity theft protection. For roughly the same price as Home Title Lock (or somewhat more), you get credit monitoring across all three bureaus, dark web surveillance, identity theft insurance, and title monitoring — often for unlimited properties under one subscription.

LifeLock's Ultimate Plus plan runs approximately $420/year at regular price but covers all properties you own under a single subscription and includes a $1 million identity theft insurance policy. Identity Guard's Ultra plan costs approximately $240/year and includes title monitoring plus identity protection. Both cost more per year than Home Title Lock's annual plan, but both do significantly more.

The trade-off: these services treat title monitoring as one feature among many. Home Title Lock focuses exclusively on property, which means its restoration team is specialized in title issues rather than general identity theft.

Dedicated Property Protection Services

A newer category of service focuses specifically on property protection but expands monitoring beyond county records to include real estate listing platforms, MLS systems, and other data sources. Some services in this category also take proactive measures — like recording legal declarations on your property title — that create formal verification requirements for future transactions.

Title Barrier, the company I founded, falls into this category. Our monitoring plan starts at $149.99/year; the Defense Plan that includes a recorded legal declaration starts at $199.99/year. Both are per-property pricing, same as Home Title Lock.

I'll describe our differences below, but I want to be clear that I'm biased here. Research multiple options and decide for yourself.

Free + Paid Layered Approach

Based on everything I've seen in this industry, the most cost-effective protection combines free tools with targeted paid services:

Layer 1 (free): County recorder property alerts — same basic monitoring as Home Title Lock's core service.

Layer 2 (free): Credit freezes with all three bureaus — prevents criminals from opening loans in your name.

Layer 3 (free): Annual review of your property records on your county recorder's website.

Layer 4 (paid, if desired): A monitoring or protection service that covers what free tools don't — listing platform surveillance, restoration assistance, or recorded legal declarations.

Whether Layer 4 is worth the cost depends on your risk profile. If you own property free and clear, own vacant land, have rental or vacation properties, or fit other higher-risk categories identified by the American Land Title Association, paid protection adds more value. If you have a mortgage on your primary residence and live there full-time, free county alerts and a credit freeze cover the most likely scenarios.

Where Home Title Lock Is Stronger Than Title Barrier

I said I'd be honest, so here it is.

Track record. Home Title Lock has operated since 2015. Title Barrier is newer. They have more customer reviews, more years of operation, and more public track record for you to evaluate.

Brand recognition. Home Title Lock advertises on national television. You've probably seen their commercials. Title Barrier is a smaller company without that level of visibility.

Restoration benefit. Home Title Lock's up to $1 million restoration benefit is well-established and clearly described. It's a genuine safety net if fraud occurs.

Where Title Barrier Is Different

Listing platform monitoring. We monitor real estate listing platforms and MLS systems in addition to county records. Home Title Lock monitors county records only. This matters because many fraud schemes start with unauthorized listings before any documents are filed.

Recorded legal declaration. Our Defense Plan records a Declaration of Property Control in your county's land records. This document formally notifies title companies, lenders, and anyone searching your title that a verification process is required before transactions proceed. It creates a barrier in the public record rather than only alerting you after changes occur. This is fundamentally different from monitoring — it's a proactive measure designed to prevent fraud, not just detect it.

Where we have limitations. We're smaller, newer, and less well-known. We don't have ten years of customer reviews to point to. Some homeowners will reasonably prefer the established company with the longer track record, and I respect that.

Government Scrutiny of Home Title Lock

Any honest cost analysis should include the regulatory context. Home Title Lock has faced government investigations focused on whether its advertising overstates the risk of title theft and the need for its service.

In January 2023, the Texas Attorney General opened an investigation for potentially violating the Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The investigation questioned specific marketing claims, including the company's attribution of a quote to the FBI that the FBI has disputed ever making, according to ABC News reporting.

In April 2023, the San Francisco and San Diego city attorneys jointly subpoenaed the company over what they called "deceptive advertising." San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu stated that the company "manufactured a 'home title theft' crisis" to convince homeowners to buy a service many counties provide for free. Home Title Lock told Checkbook.org it is cooperating with these investigations.

In August 2024, the FTC published a consumer alert warning that fear-based advertising around title lock services often overstates the risk, that the service does not provide actual insurance, and that free county alternatives exist.

Government investigations don't prove wrongdoing, but they're relevant to a cost analysis because they raise questions about whether the marketing accurately represents what the $199/year buys.

For a detailed look at these investigations with full citations, see our Home Title Lock review.

Cancellation and Billing: What to Know

Home Title Lock's billing practices are worth understanding before you sign up, because they've generated a meaningful number of BBB complaints.

Home Title Lock offers a 14-day money-back guarantee. Cancellation requires calling customer service — it cannot be done online. Multiple BBB complaints describe being charged after cancellation or difficulty obtaining refunds. One reviewer in September 2025 reported being charged $179 after canceling with written confirmation. The company's BBB profile shows 25 complaints over three years, many related to billing.

If you do sign up, I'd recommend using a credit card (easier to dispute charges), noting your renewal date, and canceling well before the renewal window if you decide to stop the service.

The Honest Bottom Line

Home Title Lock costs $199–$239/year per property for county record monitoring, alerts, and restoration assistance.

The county record monitoring — the core of the service — is available free from many county recorder offices. If you're considering Home Title Lock primarily for alerts when documents are filed, check whether your county offers a free program first. Many do.

The restoration benefit is the real value differentiator. Having a team backed by up to $1 million in covered expenses available if fraud occurs is something free county alerts don't provide. If that safety net matters to you, the $199/year may be worthwhile.

If you want monitoring beyond county records — including real estate listing platforms where fraud often starts — Home Title Lock doesn't offer that. You'd need to look at dedicated property protection services or combine Home Title Lock with your own manual checks of Zillow, Realtor.com, and other platforms.

Property fraud is real but statistically rare. The FBI's IC3 received 9,359 real estate fraud complaints in 2024 (a broad category that includes title theft alongside other types of property fraud). Title theft is a subset of that number, affecting far fewer than 0.01% of the roughly 142 million owner-occupied homes in the U.S.

That doesn't mean it's not worth protecting against — a house fire is also statistically rare, and you carry insurance for that. But it does mean you should make a calm, informed decision rather than a fear-driven one. Whatever you choose — free county alerts, Home Title Lock, a competing service, or some combination — doing something is better than doing nothing.

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Sources

1. Home Title Lock Pricing Page — hometitlelock.com/pricing
2. FTC Consumer Alert: Home Title Lock Insurance? Not a Lock at All (August 2024) — consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2024/08/home-title-lock-insurance-not-lock-all
3. Clark Howard: Home Title Lock — Is It the Same as Home Title Insurance? (October 2025) — clark.com/homes-real-estate/home-title-lock/
4. Clark Howard: Scam Alert — How to Avoid Home Title Theft (October 2025) — clark.com/scams-rip-offs/home-title-theft/
5. BBB Business Profile: Home Title Lock — bbb.org/us/fl/coral-springs/profile/threat-and-fraud-assessment/home-title-lock-0633-92030728
6. Texas Attorney General: Investigation of Home Title Lock (January 2023) — texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/paxton-announces-investigation-home-title-lock-potentially-misleading-texas-consumers
7. San Francisco City Attorney: Subpoena of Home Title Lock (April 2023) — sfcityattorney.org/2023/04/10/san-francisco-and-san-diego-city-attorneys-subpoena-home-title-lock-over-deceptive-advertising/
8. Comparitech: Home Title Lock Review — comparitech.com/identity-theft-protection/reviews/home-title-lock-review/
9. Checkbook.org / KOMO News: Home Title Monitoring Services Mislead About a Rare Crime (August 2024) — komonews.com/news/consumer/home-title-monitoring-services-mislead-about-a-rare-crime
10. Jones Property Law: Quiet Title Action Cost — jonespropertylaw.com/quiet-title-action-cost-recover-fees/
11. FBI IC3 2024 Annual Report — ic3.gov/AnnualReport/Reports/2024_IC3Report.pdf
12. ALTA Policy Endorsements for Seller Impersonation Fraud (August 2025) — nationalmortgagenews.com/news/alta-adds-seller-impersonation-coverage-to-its-title-policy

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Disclosure: Title Barrier is a property protection service that competes with Home Title Lock. This cost guide reflects our honest analysis, but our perspective is shaped by our position in the market. Every factual claim is sourced so you can verify independently. We encourage you to research multiple options before making a decision.