Free Home? Iowa Couple Investigated

Authorities are investigating an Ankeny, Iowa, couple who--after only making one mortgage payment--were able to save their home from foreclosure and have their mortgage voided by using a loophole in a 100-year-old state law.

The couple was able to get their mortgage voided by using a law requiring both spouses’ signature on the mortgage documents. During court foreclosure proceedings on their home, Matt and Jamie Danielson blamed a hasty home loan approval by their lender and the fact that Jamie Danielson never signed the mortgage in 2007 as reasons to keep their house and void the mortgage. They won in court. 

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FTC Cracks Down On Foreclosure Fraud Operation

As many homeowners continue to have trouble meeting their mortgage payments, foreclosure scams have proliferated.


Saying it is cracking down on foreclosure scams, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) broke up a national operation based in Florida that it says targeted financially distressed consumers using direct mail, the Internet, and telemarketing.  These borrowers were falsely promised loan modifications.

Giving an idea of how pervasive these foreclosure scams are, the state of Florida foreclosure prevention website, the Hardest Hit Fund, begins by warning about copycat websites. Website visitors, the Hardest Hit Fund website warns, should verify that the website is the official site before providing personal information. Application for and participation in the program is free.

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Fear of Foreclosure Fraud Driving Down REO Sales, Home Prices

After the extreme amount of outright fraud in mortgage origination, you would have thought that nothing could dissuade homebuyers from purchases. But the geniuses in the mortgage industry have managed to finally keep buyers sitting on their wallets, because of the scandalous level of foreclosure fraud.

"The ongoing controversy surrounding foreclosures is taking its toll as homebuyers refused to look at distressed properties in October, and foreclosure sales suffered from delays, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance Monthly Survey.
Both the share of home purchases involving distressed properties and average prices for foreclosed properties fell last month, the survey found."

14 percent of owner-occupant homebuyers and 6% of real estate investors refused to look at foreclosed properties last month. In short-sale properties the numbers jumped to 30% of buyers and 20% of investors. Given the worsening of the problem, and the very real possibility that originators never conveyed the mortgages into the trusts who now claim to own them, I can’t see this getting better in the near-term.

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New Jersey Man Charged In $200M Real Estate Scheme

A New Jersey man who federal prosecutors say operated a real estate investment scheme that defrauded investors of at least $200 million was arrested Thursday morning at his Lakewood home on charges of bank fraud and wire fraud.

A federal judge in Newark ordered Eliyahu Weinstein detained pending a bail hearing scheduled for Tuesday. Weinstein's attorney, Ephraim Savitt, had sought his client's release, disputing claims he was a flight risk.

Weinstein never owned many properties he claimed were his and sold his fake and real interests multiple times using forged deeds and other bogus documents, prosecutors said. They also claimed he played off his connections to the Orthodox Jewish community, exploiting its customs and business practices to bilk victims.

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As FHA Mortgage Volume Increases From 2009, Serious Delinquencies Spike

The rate of seriously delinquent mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) declined slightly from May to June, but the gross number of mortgages that are either 90 or more days past due or in foreclosure increased 35% year-over-year.

According to the FHA June single-family operations report, the total volume of mortgage in-force increased more than 24% to 6.4m in June compared to the same month one year ago. The total value of unpaid FHA mortgages was $865.5bn in June, up 30.3% from $663.8bn one year ago and up 3.3% from $837.8bn in May.

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Mortgages After Financial Reform: 5 Ways They’ll Change

The financial reform law includes tough new mortgage regulations, to stop the deceptions (and self-deceptions) that have driven millions of homeowners into foreclosure. Here’s how the market will change in 12 to 18 months, when the new rules start to take effect:

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Is It Safe To Buy Residential Real Estate?

I recently visited a friend in Phoenix who had fallen on hard times. After a divorce and losing his high-income sales job, he needed to sell his home. As you may have read, the temperature of the real estate market in the Valley of the Sun has more in common with Nome than the torrid Sonoran desert.

My friend will likely do a short sale, meaning that he'll have to get rid of his home for around $300,000. He paid about $600,000 at the top of the bubble. The difference between the mortgage value and the closing price will perversely be considered income by the IRS, and he'll have to pay taxes on the shortfall. In that case, he sighs, he'll have to file bankruptcy.

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Mortgage Fraud: Understanding And Avoiding It

Ethical violations and criminal activities in various industries have affected our economy over the past few decades, particularly in the banking, financial and housing sectors. In this article we examine the complex ethical and criminal issues surrounding mortgage fraud. Fraud in its simplest form is deliberate misrepresentation and deception. Fraud in action means that one deceives another by misrepresenting information, facts and figures.

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