Residential Mortgage Fraud
The house next door sits on the market a little too long, then is suddenly snapped up at almost double the asking price. You begin counting your money for when its time to sell your own house, but you become curious as the house continues to sit vacant for weeks after the closing. The lawn begins to deteriorate, and then windows get broken in during burglaries as copper pipes and wiring are torn out of the walls for scrap. Left long enough, vagrants, prostitutes or drug dealers may move in on these abandoned middle class properties. It becomes clear that the house next door has been the subject of mortgage fraud, the fastest growing white collar crime in America. It is a crime that has touched neighborhoods in Georgia ranging from in-town transitional areas to multi-million dollar homes in some of Georgia’s most affluent communities.
And don’t for a moment let anyone tell you that the only victim is the bank that loaned money on a fraudulent appraisal. Ask the people trying to get a loan from the banks that have had to raise rates and fees to cover their huge losses from mortgage fraud. Ask the homeowners in the neighborhood who get property tax notices that reflect the prices set by the mortgage fraud as opposed to legitimate real estate transactions. And ask the parents who can’t let their children play in the neighborhood because of the criminal element hanging out at the home on the corner slowly falling apart from neglect.
The Georgia Residential Mortgage Fraud Act (O.C.G.A. § 16-8-100 et seq.) authorizes the Attorney General and district attorneys to prosecute cases of residential mortgage fraud. Georgia was the first state in the nation to have a statute that targeted residential mortgage fraud, and the statute has been the model for over a dozen other states which have followed Georgia's lead. Georgia’s legislation covers a variety of fraudulent acts in connection with home mortgages, from fraudulent appraisals and sales contracts to fraudulent representation of financial information by a purchaser in obtaining a mortgage.
If you believe that a person or company may have committed residential mortgage fraud, please contact your local law enforcement to report the crime.
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