Upside Down Mortgage

Archive for July, 2008

Mortgage Fraud Arrests Florida

An article in Forbes talked about a report released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation this week stating that real estate fraud cases were on the rise.  They said reports of suspicious mortgage filings increased 36% during fiscal 2008 compared with 46,700 filings the year before, and that 2/3rds of all pending FBI mortgage fraud investigations last year involved more than $1 million at a clip, putting a rough estimate of the total at $1 billion.

It’s easy to understand why people would try to exploit a bad economy to help themselves, since that’s what criminals do, but it’s scary to see just how pervasive it is.  Just this week, there were four instances in four different states confirming what the FBI stated.

In North Carolina, banking regulators fined mortgage lender North American Real Estate Services Inc. $320,000 and revoked its state operating license after ruling the firm used shell companies and fictitious names to avoid state regulation.  They also ordered the company to refund $60,000 in what it called “illegal” broker fees to 13 borrowers.  Regulators allege the firm was engaged in a practice known as “net branching, which is where an existing mortgage company gives a franchise to another mortgage company in order to carry out its business in a particular area.”  Only, in this case, all the companies were under the same umbrella.  The North Carolina Commissioner of Banks’ office says it has taken enforcement actions against a number of net branch companies in recent years, with fines and settlements exceeding $1.3 million.

In Georgia, former attorney Steven H. Ballard pled guilty in federal district court to defrauding over a dozen victims in Georgia, Florida and Tennessee in a real estate investment scam.  Ballard collected over $2 million between September 2002 and May 2006 in what officials called a Ponzi scheme.  In a news release from federal officials, they stated "He told the victims that he was making 'lucrative' real estate and other investments which were not actually transacted.  He often used bogus HUD-1 settlement statements, warranty deeds and sales contracts to reflect non-existent property purchases, while using a portion of the scheme proceeds to repay former victim investors.  While the repayments included investors' principal plus "returns" often exceeding 50 percent of their initial investment, those repayments were all funded with money from new victim investors."

In the Philadelphia area, Jason Bloom was charged with keeping more than $1 million that was intended for mortgage and tax payments, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office there.  He was charged in one-count information, which is considered to be the prelude to a guilty plea.  He did this over an almost 4 year period, and could be sentenced to 30 years in prison and fined $1 million.

And finally, in the Detroit area, 7 men were charged in two separate real estate schemes.  In the first instance, 5 men were accused of using straw buyers (people who use, or allow their credit to be used, for the purchase of a property they never intend to use or control) to get fraudulent loans and sell homes with fake appraisals and buyers.  A fifth man was arrested for finding people to pose as home buyers.  In the second instance, a mortgage broker was charged with buying foreclosed, rundown or uninhabitable properties cheaply, then selling them using fake appraisals that overvalued the properties, while his partner paid underwriters to disregard any irregularities.

About the Author:

Search through our new homes, Queen Creek new homes and Arizona new homes!

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Growing Real Estate Fraud

If you're new around here, you might want to subscribe to our Upside-Down Mortgage RSS feed. It's quite likely the only feed of it's type on the internet!

Loan Modification Packages

Question: Preparing credit profile for mortgage advice?

I have a good credit rating, and I need to refinance in early 2010 (because my mortgage payment is too high..I 'd set it for 15 years instead of 30).
I am preparing: In order to clear my credit profile, I am paying off a large amount business debt on credit cards with a personal family loan .
2 questions:. How likely is a bank ( in 6 months time) to ask me how I did that?
2nd: I'll be paying $ 1250 a month... I 'm wondering will they see this in my checking account and suspect it is a loan? should I be making monthly payments to my family member with money orders so it doesn't show
I am 1000% honest and just want to package myself right because if I don't get this mortgage payment down, I could be headed for trouble.
I was told I do not qualify for mortgage modification because" I'm not in trouble" Seems only if you are in default, they'll help !.

Answer: credit-report-score.10001mb.com - try this service. I use it to monitor my credit. As I know, they have such a service.

Miami Loan Modification, Loan Modification Miami, How To Do A Loan Modification, Do It Yourself

Predatory Lending News

Question: Do you think this will have any impact whatsoever on either the Democratic primary or general election?

Obama, Clinton Campaign advisers tied to lending crisis

By Ken Dilanian, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — On the campaign trail, Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have proposed cracking down on the predatory lending that they say helped fuel the foreclosure crisis.
Both presidential candidates, however, rely on close advisers who had oversight roles at financial institutions that went bust because of subprime loans.

Clinton's campaign manager, Maggie Williams, earned at least $175,000 serving from 2000-07 on the board of Long Island-based Delta Financial, which filed for bankruptcy last year after a history of high-cost loans to low-income borrowers, according to public records.

Obama's national finance chairwoman, Penny Pritzker, was chairwoman of the board of a Chicago-area bank in 1993 when it adopted a subprime business strategy that regulators say ultimately led it to collapse in 2001.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-04-02-subprime

Answer: It definitely won't have an effect on the primaries because well, they are the only 2 left on the democrats ballot, so it is going to be one of them regardless.

Secondly I don't think it will have an effect on the general election because 1. it won't be hyped up in the media. And 2 most Voters in America are mindless Baboons. Not to sound degrading as I am an American Voter as well. but A lot of people vote for a candidate for the wrong reasons. Clinton Because she is a female (or at Least I assume I cannot speak from Personal Experience) and others Vote for O'bama because he is African-American. Now are these the only reasons people are voting for these two? No but (and especially in Clinton's case) look at the demographics of voters in the states that Clinton won. Middle aged women make up the majority..

I am a registered Democrat, and I am not looking forward to the day of Kentucky primaries.

The advisor's ties to the bankrupt lending companies is not the first time dirt has ever surfaced during elections. Unless the dirt pertains to a break in Federal Law or a Lack of family values, the election will most likely be untouched by events such as this.

60 Minutes/CBS News Interview (02-15-09) Predatory Lending - How The Mortgage Crisis Began