Florida leads U.S. in mortgage fraud
Add a Comment 
Florida, mortgage fraud March 14th, 2008For the second year in a row, Florida earned the dubious distinction of ranking first in the nation in mortgage fraud, according to a study released Thursday by the Mortgage Bankers Association, a trade group, and the Mortgage Asset Research Institute, a division of Atlanta-based ChoicePoint.
Law enforcement didn’t wait for the list.
The FBI recently created a Palm Beach County mortgage fraud task force, and the Florida Department of Financial Services has added an investigator to its mortgage fraud team in West Palm Beach, DFS Detective Theodore Padich said.
That follows last year’s move by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida to make mortgage fraud a priority.
Georgia, once a perennial No. 1 in the mortgage fraud ranking, used a law-enforcement crackdown to clean up its fraud problem, ChoicePoint Vice President Merle Sharick said. But in Florida, “it’s too soon to see the effect.”
While mortgage fraud has been rampant in Palm Beach County, few scammers have been prosecuted because the cases are so difficult to pursue, Padich said. Investigating requires time-consuming subpoenas of documents from lenders, title companies and real estate agents.
Tags: Florida, mortgage fraud
