Mortgage fraud refers to an intentional misstatement, misrepresentation, or omission of information relied upon by an underwriter or lender to fund, purchase, or insure a loan secured by real property.
Criminal offenses may be prosecuted in either federal or state court, and are typically charged under wire fraud, bank fraud, mail fraud, or money laundering statutes, with penalties of imprisonment for up to 30 years per offense.[1] As the incidence of mortgage fraud has risen over the past few years,[2] states have also begun to enact their own penalties for mortgage fraud.[3]
Mortgage fraud is not to be confused with predatory mortgage lending, which occurs when a consumer is misled or deceived by agents of the lender. However, predatory lending practices often co-exist with mortgage fraud.
Types
Occupancy fraud: This occurs where the borrower wishes to obtain a mortgage to acquire an investment property, but states on the loan application that the borrower will occupy the property as the primary residence or as a second home. If undetected, the borrower typically obtains a lower interest rate than was warranted. Because lenders typically charge a higher interest rate for non-owner-occupied properties, which historically have higher delinquency rates, the lender receives insufficient return on capital and is over-exposed to loss relative to what was expected in the transaction. In addition, lenders allow larger loans on owner-occupied homes compared to loans for investment properties. When occupancy fraud occurs, it is likely that taxes on gains are not paid, resulting in additional fraud. It is considered fraud because the borrower has materially misrepresented the risk to the lender to obtain more favorable loan terms.
Income fraud: This occurs when a borrower overstates his/her income to qualify for a mortgage or for a larger loan amount. This was most often seen with so-called "stated income" mortgage loans (popularly referred to as "liar loans"), where the borrower, or a loan officer acting for a borrower with or without the borrower's knowledge, stated without verification the income needed to qualify for the loan. Because mortgage lenders today do not have "stated income" loans, income fraud is seen in traditional full-documentation loans where the borrower forges or alters an employer-issued Form W-2, tax returns and/or bank account records to provide support for the inflated income. All lenders obtain an official IRS transcript that must match the borrower provided tax returns. It is considered fraud because in most cases the borrower would not have qualified for the loan had the true income been disclosed. The "mortgage meltdown" was caused, in part, when large numbers of borrowers in areas of rapidly increasing home prices lied about their income, acquired homes they could not afford, and then defaulted. Many of the past problems no longer exist.
Employment fraud: This occurs when a borrower claims self-employment in a non-existent company or claims a higher position (e.g., manager) in a real company, to provide justification for a fraudulent representation of the borrower's income.
Failure to disclose liabilities: Borrowers may conceal obligations, such as mortgage loans on other properties or newly acquired credit card debt, to reduce the amount of monthly debt declared on the loan application. This omission of liabilities artificially lowers the debt-to-income ratio, which is a key underwriting criterion used to determine eligibility for most mortgage loans. It is considered fraud because it allows the borrower to qualify for a loan which otherwise would not have been granted, or to qualify for a bigger loan than what would have been granted had the borrower's true debt been disclosed.
Fraud for profit: A complex scheme involving multiple parties, including mortgage lending professionals, in a financially motivated attempt to defraud the lender of large sums of money. Fraud for profit schemes frequently include a straw borrower whose credit report is used, a dishonest appraiser who intentionally and significantly overstates the value of the subject property, a dishonest settlement agent who might prepare two sets of HUD settlement statements or makes disbursements from loan proceeds which are not disclosed on the settlement statement, and a property owner, all in a coordinated attempt to obtain an inappropriately large loan. The parties involved share the ill-gotten gains and the mortgage eventually goes into default. In other cases, naive "investors" are lured into the scheme with the organizer's promise that the home will be repaired, repairs and/or renovations will be made, tenants will be located, rents will be collected, mortgage payments made and profits will be split upon sale of the property, all without the active participation of the straw buyer. Once the loan is closed, the organizer disappears, no repairs are made nor renters found, and the "investor" is liable for paying the mortgage on a property that is not worth what is owed, leaving the "investor" financially ruined. If undetected, a bank may lend hundreds of thousands of dollars against a property that is actually worth far less and in large schemes with multiple transactions, banks may lend millions more than the properties are worth. A detailed case study of the complex United States v. Quintero-Lopez case spans activity over 3+1⁄2 years (Bell, 2010).[4]
Appraisal fraud: Occurs when a home's appraised value is deliberately overstated or understated. When overstated, more money can be obtained by the borrower in the form of a cash-out refinance, by the seller in a purchase transaction, or by the organizers of a for-profit mortgage fraud scheme. Appraisal fraud also includes cases where the home's value is deliberately understated to get a lower price on a foreclosed home, or in a fraudulent attempt to induce a lender to decrease the amount owed on the mortgage in a loan modification. A dishonest appraiser may be involved in the preparation of the fraudulent appraisal, or an existing and accurate appraisal may be altered by someone with knowledge of graphic editing tools such as Adobe Photoshop. Appraisal Independence is current law.
Cash-back schemes: Occur where the true price of a property is illegally inflated to provide cash-back to transaction participants, most often the borrowers, who receive a "rebate" which is not disclosed to the lender. As a result, the lender lends too much, and the buyer pockets the overage or splits it with other participants, including the seller or the real estate agent. This scheme requires appraisal fraud to deceive the lender. "Get Rich Quick" real-estate gurus' courses frequently rely heavily on this mechanism for profitability.
Shotgunning: Occurs when multiple loans for the same home are obtained simultaneously for a total amount that may be in excess of the actual value of the property.[5] These schemes leave lenders exposed to large losses because the subsequent mortgages are junior to the first mortgage to be recorded and the property value is insufficient for the subsequent lenders to collect against the property in foreclosure. As a result of this fraud lenders may be required to litigate the issue of which lender has first priority to the property.[6]
Working the gap: A technique which entails the excessive lien stacking knowingly executed on a specific property within an inordinately narrow timeframe, via the serial recording of multiple Deeds of Trust or Assignments of Note. When recording a legal document in the United States of America, a time gap exists between when the Deed of Trust is submitted to the recorder of deeds & when it actually shows up in the data. The precision timing technique of "working the gap" between the recording of a deed & its subsequent appearance in the recorder of deeds database is instrumental in propagating the perpetrator's deception. A title search done by any lender immediately prior to the respective loan, promissory note, & deed recording would thus erroneously fail to show the alternate liens concurrently in the queue. The goal of the perpetrator is the theft of funds from each lender by deceit, with all lenders simultaneously & erroneously believing their respective Deeds of Trust to be senior in position, when in actuality there can be only one. White-collar criminals who utilize this technique will frequently claim innocence based on clerical errors, bad record keeping, or other smokescreen excuses in an attempt to obfuscate the true coordination & intent inherent in this version of mortgage fraud. This "gaming" or exploitation of a structural weakness in the US legal system is a critical precursor to "shotgunning" and considered white-collar crime when implemented in a systemic fashion.
Identity theft: Occurs when a person assumes the identity of another and uses that identity to obtain a mortgage without the knowledge or consent of the victim. In these schemes, the thieves disappear without making payments on the mortgage. The schemes are usually not discovered until the lender tries to collect from the victim, who may incur substantial costs trying to prove the theft of his/her identity.
Falsification of loan applications without the knowledge of the borrower: The loan applications are falsified without the knowledge of the borrower when the borrower actually will not qualify for a loan for various reasons. for example parties involved will make a commission out of the transaction. The business happens only if the loan application is falsified. For example, borrower applies for a loan stating monthly income of $2000 (but with this income $2000 per month the borrower will not qualify), however the broker or loan officer falsified the income documents and loan application that borrower earns a monthly income of $15,000. The loan gets approved the broker/loan officer etc. gets their commission. But the borrower struggles to repay the loan and defaults the loan eventually.
Prevalence
Mortgage fraud by borrowers from US Department of the Treasury
Mortgage fraud may be perpetrated by one or more participants in a loan transaction, including the borrower; a loan officer who originates the mortgage; a real estate agent, appraiser, a title or escrow representative or attorney; or by multiple parties as in the example of the fraud ring described above. Dishonest and unreputable stakeholders may encourage and assist borrowers in committing fraud because most participants are typically compensated only when a transaction closes.
During 2003 The Money Programme of the BBC in the UK uncovered systemic mortgage fraud throughout HBOS. The Money Programme found that during the investigation brokers advised the undercover researchers to lie on applications for self-certified mortgages from, among others, the Royal Bank of Scotland, The Mortgage Business and Birmingham Midshires Building Society.[8]
In 2004, the FBI warned that mortgage fraud was becoming so rampant that the resulting "epidemic" of crimes could trigger a massive financial crisis.[9] According to a December 2005 press release from the FBI, "mortgage fraud is one of the fastest growing white-collar crimes in the United States".[10] Between March 1 and June 18, 2008, 406 people were arrested for mortgage fraud in an FBI sting across the country. People arrested include buyers, sellers and others across the wide-ranging mortgage industry.[11]
These authorizations were made for the federal fiscal years beginning October 1, 2009 and 2010, after which point they expire, and are in addition to the previously authorized budgets for these agencies.[14]
Koller, Cynthia A. (2012). "White Collar Crime in Housing: Mortgage Fraud in the United States." El Paso, TX: LFB Scholarly. ISBN978-1593325343
Patterson, Laura A., & Koller, Cynthia A. Koller (2011). "Diffusion of Fraud Through Subprime Lending: The Perfect Storm." In Mathieu Deflem (ed.) Economic Crisis and Crime (Sociology of Crime Law and Deviance, Volume 16), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.25–45.
A straw purchase or nominee purchase is any purchase wherein an agent agrees to acquire a good or service for someone who is often unable or unwilling to purchase the good or service themselves, and the agent transfers the goods or services to that person after purchasing them. In general, straw purchases are legal except in cases where the ultimate receiver of goods or services uses those goods or services in the commission of a crime with the prior knowledge of the straw purchaser, or if the ultimate possessor is not legally able to purchase the goods or services.
A reverse mortgage is a mortgage loan, usually secured by a residential property, that enables the borrower to access the unencumbered value of the property. The loans are typically promoted to older homeowners and typically do not require monthly mortgage payments. Borrowers are still responsible for property taxes or homeowner's insurance. Reverse mortgages allow older people to immediately access the home equity they have built up in their homes, and defer payment of the loan until they die, sell, or move out of the home. Because there are no required mortgage payments on a reverse mortgage, the interest is added to the loan balance each month. The rising loan balance can eventually grow to exceed the value of the home, particularly in times of declining home values or if the borrower continues to live in the home for many years. However, the borrower is generally not required to repay any additional loan balance in excess of the value of the home.
Refinancing is the replacement of an existing debt obligation with another debt obligation under a different term and interest rate. The terms and conditions of refinancing may vary widely by country, province, or state, based on several economic factors such as inherent risk, projected risk, political stability of a nation, currency stability, banking regulations, borrower's credit worthiness, and credit rating of a nation. In many industrialized nations, common forms of refinancing include primary residence mortgages and car loans.
A bridge loan is a type of short-term loan, typically taken out for a period of 2 weeks to 3 years pending the arrangement of larger or longer-term financing. It is usually called a bridging loan in the United Kingdom, also known as a "caveat loan," and also known in some applications as a swing loan. In South African usage, the term bridging finance is more common, but is used in a more restricted sense than is common elsewhere.
Predatory lending refers to unethical practices conducted by lending organizations during a loan origination process that are unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent. While there are no internationally agreed legal definitions for predatory lending, a 2006 audit report from the office of inspector general of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) broadly defines predatory lending as "imposing unfair and abusive loan terms on borrowers", though "unfair" and "abusive" were not specifically defined. Though there are laws against some of the specific practices commonly identified as predatory, various federal agencies use the phrase as a catch-all term for many specific illegal activities in the loan industry. Predatory lending should not be confused with predatory mortgage servicing which is mortgage practices described by critics as unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent practices during the loan or mortgage servicing process, post loan origination.
A mortgage broker acts as an intermediary who brokers mortgage loans on behalf of individuals or businesses. Traditionally, banks and other lending institutions have sold their own products. As markets for mortgages have become more competitive, however, the role of the mortgage broker has become more popular. In many developed mortgage markets today,, mortgage brokers are the largest sellers of mortgage products for lenders. Mortgage brokers exist to find a bank or a direct lender that will be willing to make a specific loan an individual is seeking. Mortgage brokers in Canada are paid by the lender and do not charge fees for good credit applications. In the US, many mortgage brokers are regulated by their state and by the CFPB to assure compliance with banking and finance laws in the jurisdiction of the consumer. The extent of the regulation depends on the jurisdiction.
The loan-to-value (LTV) ratio is a financial term used by lenders to express the ratio of a loan to the value of an asset purchased.
The CFPB requires that lenders provide customers with a Loan Estimate to help them understand the full cost of buying a home with a mortgage. The Loan Estimate replaces the Good Faith Estimate, or GFE, that was used prior to 2015.
Flipping is a term used to describe purchasing a asset and quickly reselling it for profit.
A commercial mortgage is a mortgage loan secured by commercial property, such as an office building, shopping center, industrial warehouse, or apartment complex. The proceeds from a commercial mortgage are typically used to acquire, refinance, or redevelop commercial property.
Loan origination is the process by which a borrower applies for a new loan, and a lender processes that application. Origination generally includes all the steps from taking a loan application up to disbursal of funds. For mortgages, there is a specific mortgage origination process. Loan servicing covers everything after disbursing the funds until the loan is fully paid off. Loan origination is a specialized version of new account opening for financial services organizations. Certain people and organizations specialize in loan origination. Mortgage brokers and other mortgage originator companies serve as a prominent example.
An appraised value or mortgage valuation (Australia) pertains to the assessed value of real property in the opinion of a qualified appraiser or valuer. It is usually a pre-qualification & risk-based pricing factor related to the issuance of mortgage loans by a financial institution.
Equity stripping, also known as equity skimming, is a type of foreclosure rescue scheme. Often considered a form of predatory lending, equity stripping became increasingly widespread in the early 2000s. In an equity stripping scheme an investor buys the property from a homeowner facing foreclosure and agrees to lease the home to the homeowner who may remain in the home as a tenant. Often, these transactions take advantage of uninformed, low-income homeowners; because of the complexity of the transaction, victims are often unaware that they are giving away their property and equity. Several states have taken steps to confront the more unscrupulous practices of equity stripping. Although "foreclosure re-conveyance" schemes can be beneficial and ethically conducted in some circumstances, many times the practice relies on fraud and egregious or unmeetable terms.
Private money investing is the reverse side of hard money lending, a type of financing in which a borrower receives funds based on the value of real estate owned by the borrower. Private Money Investing (“PMI”) concerns the source of the funds lent to hard money borrowers, as well as other considerations made from the investor's side of the equation.
Casey Konstantin Serin is an Uzbekistan-born American blogger, mortgage broker, and real estate investor. In a newspaper article, USA Today called him the "poster child for everything that went wrong in the real estate boom". Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Serin immigrated to the United States in 1994. After graduating from high school, Serin bounced from job to job, generally working in website design. However, in his early twenties, Serin decided to quit working full-time in order to pursue a career in house flipping as a means of earning an income and building wealth. In an eight-month period beginning in October 2005, Serin purchased eight houses in four southwest U.S. states, and then began blogging about the foreclosure process on the properties he was unable to resell. In time, five of the eight properties foreclosed. The dubious nature of Serin's real estate transactions, coupled with his subsequent blogging about the affair, have led to Serin's name becoming strongly associated with the subprime mortgage crisis.
A mortgage loan or simply mortgage, in civil law jurisdictions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any purpose while putting a lien on the property being mortgaged. The loan is "secured" on the borrower's property through a process known as mortgage origination. This means that a legal mechanism is put into place which allows the lender to take possession and sell the secured property to pay off the loan in the event the borrower defaults on the loan or otherwise fails to abide by its terms. The word mortgage is derived from a Law French term used in Britain in the Middle Ages meaning "death pledge" and refers to the pledge ending (dying) when either the obligation is fulfilled or the property is taken through foreclosure. A mortgage can also be described as "a borrower giving consideration in the form of a collateral for a benefit (loan)".
In real estate, creative financing is non-traditional or uncommon means of buying land or property. The goal of creative financing is generally to purchase, or finance a property, with the buyer/investor using as little of his own money as possible, otherwise known as leveraging. Using these techniques an investor may be able to purchase multiple properties using little, or none, of his "own money".
An Automated Valuation Model (AVM) is a system for the valuation of real estate that provides a value of a specified property at a specified date, using mathematical modelling techniques in an automated manner. AVMs are Statistical Valuation Methods and divide into Comparables Based AVMs and Hedonic Models. Other Statistical Valuation Methods are House Price Indices and Single Parameter Valuations.
A no documentation loan (no-doc) or low documentation loan (low-doc) refers to loans that do not require borrowers to provide documentation of their income to lenders or do not require much documentation. It is a financial product commonly offered by a mortgage lender to consumers who cannot qualify for normal loan products because of fluctuating or hard-to-verify incomes, such as the self-employed, or to serve long time customers with strong credit. Applicants are often required to provide a substantial down payment, i.e. a larger deposit either through equity in security or personal savings.
In consumer lending, mortgage origination, a specialized subset of loan origination, is the process by which a lender works with a borrower to complete a mortgage transaction, resulting in a mortgage loan. A mortgage loan is a loan in which property or real estate is used as collateral. During this process, borrowers must submit various types of financial information and documentation to a mortgage lender, including tax returns, payment history, credit card information and bank balances. Mortgage lenders use this information to determine the type of loan and the interest rate for which the borrower is eligible. The process in the United States has become complex due to the proliferation of loan products and consumer protection regulations.
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