Foreclosure schemes. These are particularly evil because they prey on people with big enough financial problems that they’re in danger of losing their home. A homeowner in the early stages of foreclosure may be contacted by a fraudster who says he can help the homeowner get rid of his debt and save his house for an upfront fee, which the fraudster takes and then disappears. In another scheme, a homeowner is approached by a con artist who offers to help them refinance the loan. “They sign all these documents and find out later that they actually sold the house — to the fraudster. Then they face eviction.

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COMMON REAL PROPERTY FRAUDS:

Home Equity/Identity Fraud – A forged deed is recorded to give the appearance that the perpetrator has
acquired ownership of a property. The perpetrator uses the equity in the property as collateral to borrow
money. No payments are made on the new loan(s), and the true owner could face foreclosure.

Home Renovation/Mortgage Fraud – Contractors offer to do home improvement work or lenders offer
special “low-interest” financing, but do not deliver what was promised. Homeowners are left with partially
complete or substandard construction, or a mortgage payment that is higher than expected.

Real Estate Investment/Foreclosure Fraud – Investors are lured into buying property that is supposedly
facing foreclosure for pennies on the dollar. Quitclaim deeds and other documents are forged to give the
appearance that a property is being sold to avoid foreclosure.

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This occurs when someone buys a property in bad shape for a cheap price. Say $50,000. They make some cosmetic repairs spending say $1,000 and then sell it at an inflated price say $80,000 to a buyer who puts little or no money down.

The seller takes a mortgage back for a large amount, say $78,000, and gets a phony appraisal based on the inflated sales price.

You are then offered the mortgage at a discount at what looks like an attractive yield.

Soon afterwards the buyer stops making payments and moves out. Leaving you with a trashed house.

The key to this fraud is the inflated appraisal. Remember that appraising is an art not an exact science. Nonetheless an appraisal should be within 10% of the true value of the property.

This fraud can be hard to spot. Many legitimate investors DO buy properties for much less than their true value and are able to genuinely sell them for a higher price.

• The key is to check out the comparable properties on the appraisal form and satisfy yourself that they are truly comparable.
• Try to specify the appraiser and not use one provided by the investor.
• Check the credit rating of the new borrower. Especially if they have only put down a small down payment.
• Be wary of mortgages for sale that have not been aged, that is, a number of payments made on them.

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There are 2 type of mortgage fraud.

• Fraud to get a property
• Fraud to make a profit

The first is were someone lies about facts to get a loan to buy a property.
The second is where someone lies about facts to make a profit.

Fraud is committed by falsifications in the following ways:

1. Loan application fraud. Where an applicant lies about their income or their job. Perhaps the down payment they are making was given to them by the person selling them the home and the value of the home inflated to cover it.
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If it came across your mind that you could be a victim of a real estate fraud or scam, then it is very much important for you to move and act quickly. Here are some steps you can follow to get help that you need when this happens to you.

First, report what had transpired and everything that happened to your local police department. Second, tell your lawyer and adviser about what happened and scrutinize them by asking what steps you should make and inquire on what concerns you.

Lastly, contact your Local land registry officer as soon as possible as to prevent further harm.
You can also consult with someone at your bank, if you want.

Image Source : scamhunters.blogspot.com

This ploy involves career criminals who know how to reel in possible buyers without arousing suspicion, using fake land titles to hook them in. Document forgeries is the easiest way to call these documents that have the feel and look of the real thing but are really fakes under the skin.
Using originals to get more value from them or altered through some method they can be entirely fakes or modified to make them reflect a totally different property or at a different more than actual value amount. The unsuspecting buyer, agrees to make the down payment and may even pay the full amount to take advantage of the low proce, only to find out the document is a forgery, forgetting to get the land title verified for security’s sake.

People have been trying to find ever craftier ways to get over the recession with as little cost as possible. And in this case, real estates agents have begun to record some new ones on the block that are quickly adding to more problems in the already distressed world of reals estates, Buy and Bail. The scam has a homeowner signify to purchase a new home while letting their old home settle into foreclosure, using a lease with the lender to boost their income levels.
This results in a higher credit standing so they qualify for mortgages at both instances, bailing out of their old homes as they get the new one. The crafty ploy leaves the agent and lender both to lose investments as the homeowner leaves and takes their mortgage payments with them plus some extra cash they make form the bailout process.
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Identity theft continues to wreak havoc on the economy and hardworking honest people who can simply do without it with all the problems we are facing today. Even an innocent looking e-mail can be used for phishing and include the information for financial stuff and you get vishing scams. All of the above mentioned activities designed to get your information for use in criminal activity that you would surely hate.
As stressed over and over again, under any circumstance, should you provide information to people you cannot be sure of their credentials. When using the internet, be sure you are on a legitimate page with the proper security in place such as an intrusion prevention system (internet security software), (more…)

As if people never learn, or maybe they are so desperate they are willing to try anything without verifying the legality of their actions. Mortgage rescue company scams have the homeowner signing over their land title to lenders who should take over the mortgage payments to prevent foreclosure. The problem is that the agent who seemingly acts as the middleman, pockets your rent and doesn’t send it it, leaving the homeowner with the foreclosure and losing more cash in the process instead of saving their much earned cash. (more…)

Staged short sale scams are also being noted by the FBI who describes the activity as that which is very much alarming due to increasing number of cases. The scam takes hold when a buyer seemingly takes the cause to purchase with the intent of not making any payments and pockets the lean they filed with the bank to finance the home purchase. He doesn’t pay for the home leaving the homeowner to deal with the foreclosure, the lender then seeks for a pre-foreclosure buyer to help dispose of the home. A second buyer pretending to be a pre-foreclosure buyer then goes to the lender and opts to buy the property for the current loan amount with the previous fraudulent buyer damaging the home to obtain lower rates. (more…)