Miami Mayor Carlos Alvarez’s Mortgage Fraud Task Force met Wednesday to discuss their progress on the war against real estate fraud in South Florida. (more…)

The Florida attorney general’s office announced on Monday that Michael Danish of Hillsborough County, who was arrested earlier this year for running a mortgage fraud scheme, has pleaded guilty. (more…)

Federal prosecutors charge that mortgage brokers, appraisers, title agents, and loan officers took more than $50 million in fraudulent home loans to buy luxury condos in South Beach and homes in Southwest Ranches. (more…)

A rash of Florida mortgage complaints started landing on the desks of Tampa Police fraud investigators three years ago. (more…)

More than three out of four Americans believe mortgage fraud wrecked the booming real estate market, according to a poll conducted by Housing Predictor.com, which forecasts local housing markets in all 50 U.S. States. (more…)

In late 2005, Barbara and Gregory Klein agreed to sell their St. Petersburg home for $535,000 to a man who had seen their “For Sale By Owner” sign.

But when the Kleins went to complete the deal, their copy of the closing statement showed a different buyer - and a sale price of $599,000. (more…)

Daphne and Randolph Sewell thought they were risking only $15,000 in the summer of 2005 when they took out $750,000 in construction loans for three First Home Builders houses in Lee County.

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Deliberately inflated appraisals are the key component in residential real estate schemes in the Southwest Florida housing market and across the country.

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A Miami couple says a Florida mortgage company affiliated with Fort Myers-based First Home Builders altered information to enhance their financing application without their knowing it, hikinh up the value of their residence and length of time the husband had been at his job.

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Gabriellee Cunningham had fallen behind on the Florida mortgage on her modest suburban Miami home and was mired in debt when she was approached in June by a door-to-door “mortgage lender” who promised to help her.

Nine months later, her $89,000 mortgage has ballooned into a $234,000 loan, her monthly payments have doubled and she faces foreclosure on a house she no longer owns.

Housing officials call Cunningham the victim of one of the worst cases of predatory lending they’ve ever seen and warn, as the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis grows, of a rising tide of scams in which homeowners are being cheated out of their home equity.

“I know I did something stupid but I am going to fight these people ’til my last breath because they are trying to rob me,” said Cunningham, 48, who works at three jobs. She says she fell behind on her payments while trying to fund college educations for two daughters.

Consumer advocates have seen a surge in “foreclosure rescue” and “equity stripping” scams in recent months as the subprime mortgage crisis developed.

Lenders launched foreclosure actions against more than one in every 200 mortgage borrowers in the fourth quarter of 2006, according to a Mortgage Bankers Association survey that hammered equity markets this month.

That figure was the highest in the association’s history. Subprime adjustable-rate mortgage delinquencies jumped to nearly 14.5 percent in the quarter.

CRISIS JUST BEGINNING?
Florida is among the states hardest hit by the crisis, which some advocates believe is in its infancy. The Florida housing market ranks second to California in the percentage of subprime loans, or loans granted to people with poor credit histories, many of whom are finding they can’t make their payments.

By some estimates, up to 30 percent of loans in Miami, a metropolitan area with large poor and immigrant populations, are subprime.

The non-profit National Consumer Law Center said no one tracks the number of people trapped by mortgage scams but it agrees with the views of lawyers and consumer agencies that loan scams, which routinely target the poor and minorities, have proliferated with rising property values.

Jeffrey Hearne, a lawyer with Legal Services of Greater Miami, said his office saw few cases until two years ago but now has two dozen and sees one or two new ones each week.

“We are having to turn them away,” he said.

Cunningham said she was panicked about her finances when a sweet-talking lender knocked on her door. He promised to refinance her house and relieve her of Florida mortgage payments for a year to allow her to catch her breath.

Cunningham said the scam artists used race and religion to lure her – “affinity marketing” tactics that experts say are typical.

“They sent a black guy. I’m black,” Cunningham said. “He said he was a Christian. I’m a Christian.”

The result: Cunningham says her mortgage, an $89,000 Florida mortgage loan at 8.5 percent when she bought the home in 2000, is now a $234,000 loan at 11 percent. Monthly payments have gone from $1,038 to $2,275. And her name is no longer on the title.

“How do you think I’m going to pay $2,275 if I fell behind at $1,038?” she said. “I’m afraid I don’t even own my home anymore. I’ll be homeless.”

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