Suspicious mortgage fraud activity that occurred at least four years ago induced filings in the third quarter to spike 20% from a year earlier.
Financial institutions filed 19,934 suspicious activity reports involving mortgage loan fraud in the three months ended Sept. 30, up from 16,567 in the same period of 2010, according to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
Nearly 62% of the filings in the quarter involved suspicious activity that began at least four years ago. In the year-earlier third quarter, that figure was 24%. Instances of alleged fraud stem largely from mortgage repurchase demands and filings from depository institutions related to originations during the height of the housing boom.
Reports of suspicious activity also involved loan workout or debt elimination; questionable refinance or loan modification attempts by borrowers or others targeting distressed homeowners; and Social Security number discrepancies submitted in the original loan application and the workout request.
The enforcement network found that 5,728 reports filed in the third quarter, 29% of the total, included activity that occurred between October 2009 and September 2011.
In January, President Barack Obama announced the formation of amortgage fraud task force headed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. In the March issue of Housing Wire magazine, Christopher Whalen discusses Schneiderman’s role in investigating fraud and malfeasance in the financial markets, which he says should be understood separately from Washington agendas.
FinCEN said the top five states with fraud reports by per capita and in the third quarter were Hawaii, California, Nevada, Florida and Delaware.
The top five counties were Santa Clara County, Calif.; Honolulu; Orange County, Calif., San Bernardino County, Calif. and Palm Beach County, Fla.
“As housing markets look to recover, criminals persist in their efforts to prey on struggling homeowners, while financial institutions continue to uncover apparent fraud as they work through their portfolios of earlier mortgages now in default,”FinCEN Director James Freis said. “FinCEN will continue to monitor these reports and work closely with law enforcement to help them track illicit actors.”
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Hopefully this will wake some homeowners up that mortgage fraud is a huge problem even in our current market. There is no question from 2000-2007 that the majority of the fraud that caused the entire mortgage meltdown was the biggest issue, but we need to pay attention to what is still going on with mortgage fraud and foreclosure fraud today. Don’t ignore it, you could greatly improve your financial situation.
Robo-signing is no question a huge problem these days, but now through our law firms access to new technology using the Bloomberg Financial Platform and our certified auditor we can provide the proof and leverage you need to negotiate better terms with an equity position in your home. Or if necessary file a strong warranted law suit against your lender or servicer using our legal horsepower at very affordable flat fee prices to fight back and win.
In fact, the Bloomberg terminal can provide the homeowner information regarding chain of title and securitized loan trusts for our clients. Finding out if you have back end wrong doings or fraud after your loan was sold on wall street is really what will give you the proper leverage. In some cases maybe even proving you have a broken chain of title that could award a quiet title action releasing you of your current debt obligation.
Did you know that banks and loan servicers may not have the right to foreclose on a home or even collect payments from the homeowner? Many loans were placed into securitized trusts but the lenders but the lenders may have violated the trust regulations; the note and deed of trust may have been separated; and the trust may even been paid off. Lenders won’t share this information, but we can find it and determine whether the lender is acting unlawfully or fraudulently. And again that is where the Bloomberg Financial Research Platform comes in!
Find out how we are different! We do not do government loan modifications, so you can be current or behind on payments. In addition, you don’t need to show a hardship proving your current income to qualify which can make the process impossible to get approved for. Not to mention most government loan mods are trial periods anyway. Also keep in mind you will not get a principal reduction, or if you are behind on payments they will just tack it on the end of your loan balance making your equity position even worse, no thanks. And a large majority will just say sorry you don’t qualify for a permanent loan modification down the road after you paid them on the trial period, then you will be forced into a short sale or even eventually being foreclosed on. We can also negotiate down substantially second mortgages or lines of credit.
So don’t be fooled by these banksters, stand up and fight for your legal rights!
So don’t wonder of you were defrauded doing nothing about it, take advantage of our FREE preliminary loan audit and see if we have a case to move forward to finally getting you remedy with your particular situation.
The banks hide the loan trusts…we find the loan trusts!
Sincerely,
Tom Self
Paralegal- Magnum Law Group
www.BankFraudBlog.com
VMS-Washington 