For the economy to ever have a chance at bouncing back, the issue of mortgage fraud should be addressed. With foreclosures happening left and right, different scams are coming to fore and it’s hurting the country’s chances of ever picking up from the economic slump.
Though mortgage fraud comes in different forms these days, the well-thought out plans always involve a limited liability company (LLC) or “straw buyer”.
The buyer assumes a fake identity or an identity of someone who allows his credit status to be used for a fee then purchases a home through money borrowed from mortgage lenders. The seller gets away with the cash and the buyer never makes payments on the mortgage. In the end, the lender loses.
When lenders lose in those kinds of fraud cases, the taxpayers also lose. With government support for the mortgage market, taxpayers are in turn paying to keep the housing industry afloat.
A recent example of the LLC-type of mortgage fraud is the Back of the Yards. A house on the 53rd block of South Wood Street sold for just $25,500 in January 2009. After getting $110,000 mortgage for repairs, the house went back on the market in June. The asking price is now $355,000.
Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago’s head Emilio Carrasquillo says the sale does not make sense. It can only be a clear case of fraud.
Though mortgage fraud may not entice as much hate and rage as rape or murder, it is equally as hateful. In 2009 alone, mortgage fraud has cost the nation a whooping $14billion – hampering whatever slow recovery the housing industry is currently having.
Though the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is working on putting up more defenses, the number of foreclosures is just spawning new fraud schemes. According to Carasquillo, a few Back of the Yards houses were sold for $5,000 and $30,000 last year and then resold for $385,000. Fraudsters are clearly walking away with the cash and honest home buyers are having a hard time scouting for properties to buy.
A June 17 report by the FBI shows that fraud cases are going up. From 63,700 in 2008, the number rose 5% to 67,200 a year later. The number is three times more than it had been in 2005. And the first three months of 2010 showed that the number just might be increasing, with the fraud cases totaling 38,000.
Sharon Ormsby, who is the section chief of the FBI’s financial crimes section, says that despite the FBI’s actions, fraud numbers may just keep going up if foreclosures also increase.
posted @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/lawgrace/weekly-audit-foreclosure_b_677068_57349461.html
CASE IN POINT: FORECLOSURE MILLS, JUDICIAL FRAUD, CONSUMER EXPLOITATION, GOVERNMENT SHAMS (an abstract)
Unscrupulous foreclosure mill activities are more criminally exploitive than what becomes reported –not only in Florida. Appalling collection abuses have resulted in mill lawyers (or their affiliates) obtaining ownership of fraudulently foreclosed properties via purported bids at “simulated” auctions. Certain fraudulently auctioned properties become “flipped” illegally to Freddie Mac. Some mill lawyers file into court records fee-making pleadings (summary judgments, etc) when Freddie Mac is not party to cases, and they bill $$$$ fees pretending to represent Freddie Mac. As manifest throughout my http://www.lawgrace.org website, mills have cooperation and applause of federal and state courts.
Through falsified Bankruptcy Court pleadings, some foreclosure mill lawyers wrongfully, illegally impede homeowners’ restructuring debts, and discovery of the actual owners of mortgage notes. Such lawyers file falsified bankruptcy “Lift Stay” motions in names of either defunct lenders or lenders with no ownership of property notes. To the contrary, bankruptcy “lift stays” should not be granted where there’s no “standing” since “ranking” and “secured debt” factors come into play. False bankruptcy pleadings not only help illegal property repossessions, any other creditors whom debtors owe, becomes deprived wrongfully of entitled shares of proceeds from those auction frauds; and ILLEGITIMATE “deficiency judgments” ; and third party debt-buyers seeking money after unfairly low bids resulted in large debt balances are also problems.
Plus, foreclosure mills work in concert with Wells Fargo. Among other things, Wells Fargo has tax advantage from fraudulent foreclosure proceedings after placing distressed homeowners’ names / social security numbers on false IRS (acquisition) form 1099-A’s, even when no lawful “acquisition” of properties occurred; such homeowners wrongfully become forced to explain these turn of events to the IRS after surprise receipts of tax bills.
People who think that people who can no longer afford their mortgage should pack up and move out, ignore that it is unjust to render people homeless by use of intentional, dishonest, illegal foreclosure proceedings. Foreclosure mill illegalities like Attorney David J. Stern’s actually accounts for “illegal foreclosures” and “Tent Cities” which could be Anyplace, USA. Consider: Former homeowners Lawrence and Linda Elin, gave up their home after becoming victims of Bernie Madoff. (Former Wells Fargo executive Cheronda Guyton held parties after the Elins moved out; and astonishingly, “Collin Equities” permitted Guyton personal, free access to that home. A foreclosure auction had not occurred which made “Collin” proprietor of property that supposedly ‘went back’ to Wells Fargo (how did Collin get it?) The point being, it is possible that the Elins unwittingly aided a foreclosure fraud which displaced them –people unknowingly do it all the time! These situations are salient reasons why foreclosure fraud (on farmers, businesses, as well as residences) MUST be investigated;” it can cripple peoples’ abilities to move forward with their lives for a very long time –and the cloaked perpetrators are often millionaires; those perpetrators are as bad as, or worse than Bernie Madoff.
Because it is imperative to expose the variations of noxious foreclosure shams; and I have been offering / pleading that My True Story (with Prima Facie proof!) be used in Case Study about deceptive foreclosures and judicial biases. I have not relished all my personal costs in almost 5 years of trying to tell the story (my own, as well as others) of how the judicial system is being utilized by the banking industry (knowingly and unknowingly, because sometimes the lenders don’t know the foreclosure mills are handing them dirty titles) to devastate people whose circumstances causes them difficulty with repaying debts. **SEE this entire article with resource links @ http://www.lawgrace.org/2010/08/14/foreclosure-mills-judicial-fraud-consumer-exploitation-government-shams/