Mortgage Fraud Crimes and Role of Attorneys

Mortgage fraud refers to various actions done intentionally to maliciously acquire a mortgage or, if already eligible for a loan, to acquire a higher one. Oftentimes, it is also referred to as bank fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, and wire fraud.
There are different kinds of frauds, foremost among them are frauds for profit. In these types of frauds, borrowers and mortgage lending professionals conspire and defraud lenders of huge sums of money. They use credit report of a straw borrower to defraud the lender. Often, an appraiser in collusion with the borrower overstates the value of house or commercial building, allowing the borrower to get a higher amount.
Identity theft is also a form of mortgage fraud. This might happen when someone assumes your identity to borrower huge sums of money. The theft then applies for a mortgage taken without your knowledge, whose identity the former has assumed.
Another common type of mortgage fraud indulged in by many is the appraisal fraud. This mostly happens when value of any property is overstated or sometimes deliberately understated. The former leads to more loan amount is obtained by the borrower while the latter might result in lender being pressurized to reduce the actual amount owed in a loan modification.
Any failure to disclose liability is also another type of mortgage fraud. In this, borrower might conceal obligations, such as recently acquired credit card debt, or mortgage loans on other properties. This leads to borrower getting much large loan amount than what he would have originally been given if details about his other were made known.
Albiet a little less know fraud is occupancy fraud. This mainly happens when a borrower secures a loan for any investment property naming such as primary residence or address of the borrower. In this, borrower will have to pay a lower interest rate than the one meant for all loans against non-owner occupied properties. Other types of mortgage frauds include, shotgunning, cash-back schemes, and house flipping.
If you’ve been a victim of a mortgage fraud, you should get in touch with a mortgage fraud attorney without any delay because investigation in such cases is labor intensive and take time. Speed is very important because any delay means guilty parties are long gone. Early filing of the case, means increasing chances of catching the guilty parties.

Steve Raiser, is a founding partner at long island criminal lawyers who specializes in providing high quality criminal defense to those who need it.