Mortgage Company Scams Clients
I had a question concerning mortgage company scams. A friend had his house refinanced through a company called Oasis Mortgage located in High Point, N.C. After an ongoing federal investigation of three years the owner and seven employees were arrested and have charges pending. They are charged with falsifying documents for people who were not able to qualify for home loans. Other businesses involved were attorneys who provided fraudulent settlement statements, bank loan officers approved fraudulent loans. A real estate appraiser provided overvalued appraisals, and a paralegal created fraudulent settlement statements. Federal agents say a majority of the applicants ended up losing their homes to foreclosure. The company obtained 15 to 20 million dollars a year since forming in 1999. My question is what can my friend and other victims do to the mortgage company ? Class action suit maybe?
Crooks are smart and have smart attorneys. Scams like this hopefully can be stopped but some just change address and names and get right back in business. Have they filed bankruptcy. Does the company or the officers have assetts and are they worth chasing. Somebody will have to pay a sharp attorney to handle the case and it will not be cheap. If the Federal Trade Commission gets involved they are pretty good at collecting funds for victims. Hopefully thetheyu will get involved and the FBI too. These guys do not mess around and can afford the investigation expense as well as the legal costs.
Good LUCK and HAPPY HOLIDAYS
Hope this helps some
Ted Jr
Quote:
On 2003-11-30 14:35, DMAC wrote:
I had a question concerning mortgage company scams. A friend had his house refinanced through a company called Oasis Mortgage located in High Point, N.C. After an ongoing federal investigation of three years the owner and seven employees were arrested and have charges pending. They are charged with falsifying documents for people who were not able to qualify for home loans. Other businesses involved were attorneys who provided fraudulent settlement statements, bank loan officers approved fraudulent loans. A real estate appraiser provided overvalued appraisals, and a paralegal created fraudulent settlement statements. Federal agents say a majority of the applicants ended up losing their homes to foreclosure. The company obtained 15 to 20 million dollars a year since forming in 1999. My question is what can my friend and other victims do to the mortgage company ? Class action suit maybe?
You said "My question is what can my friend and other victims do to the mortgage company ? "
It depends, what harm was done to your freind?
I'm glad to hear they were stopped. They give the good guys a bad name. There is good and bad in every business.
Your friend should review a copy of his mortgage application. The broker may have falsified information on the application your friend signed. If your friends application has been falsified and he signed the application then your friend may have questions to answer from the FBI. Falsifying information on the application is a federal crime.
If your friend has been making his payments and his financial situation has not changed for the worse since the application, the lender will most likely work something out with him.
The owner of the mortgage company does have plenty of money and I think that is exactly what the local news was trying to show. The local news did the story right in front of his house which had to be 400k or more. I don't think the owner has filed bankruptcy. The FBI is handling the case, so I think it would be wise for my friend to pursue legal action. My friend had his house refinanced through them, which I don't know the refinance process. His house was appraised very high and since then he has had two appraisers come out to say there is no way his house should have been appraised that high. So is he in any kind of financial bind with an over appraisal or legal trouble?
The regulators get interested when the loans go bad. Provided that he makes his payments they are not particularly interested in him. They dont have time or interest in looking at all the loans a fink made - only those that defaulted.
He is not in trouble as long as there is no reason to think that he participated in the misrepresentation. On the other hand, if he overstated his income and if he goes into foreclosure he may be in trouble. Still the real interest of the regulators is in the intermediaries who set up all these bad loans.
He only sues if he has been damaged. I dont see the damages.
The frauds appear to have been on behalf of the clients getting them loans for which they were not qualified. In this situation they are party to the conspiracy and indeed may have been enriched by the fraud. Accordingly they have no cause of action. I would not suggest an action on their behalf.
Out here in California over the last 50 years. we have had several instances of a similar nature. Seems to be part of the normal scene.
Maybe you could file a claim stating that the borrowers were retarded and as such not fully capable of contract and their loans should be excused.
Include me out of that one.
Cheers Lucius