4 Real Estate and Mortgage Fraud Tips

In recent years with the advent of technology and the internet there has been increased focus of privacy and identity theft but this is nothing new. Theft and fraud has always been a constant threat but especially in our society where your credit is everything and everything can be bought on some form of credit. And the largest form of credit most people have is their home mortgage. But what if the mortgage you have is not even yours and on a property you did not know even existed. This is mortgage fraud and it can happen to anyone.

There are many different types of real estate and mortgage fraud. Basically you can identify them as either a fraud to make a profit, or a fraud to get the property. Regardless of which it is a fraud is committed when falsifying of records occur in some way. In this article we will take a look at a few of the different types of real estate and mortgage frauds.

One of the most common types of fraud committed in the real estate and mortgage industry is on the loan application itself. It is not unusual for the applicant to increase their income or lie about their job.

They might even lie about where they got the down payment. It is not unusual for the down payment to actually come from the person selling the home themselves. These are all examples of loan application fraud.

One area where fraud can be committed and is hard to prove is on the appraisal itself. You could have two different appraisals just from the appraiser themselves. 

There are so many things that are subject to interpretation on an appraisal. The problem can come because the appraiser themselves feels pressure from the buyer, seller, and the real estate agent trying to come up with a number that satisfies everyone can create a fraud situation.

Today there are so many different levels of credit that it can become imperative to a buyer that they obtain a fake credit report. Trying to clean up their credit report can be the difference in qualifying for mortgage loan or not.

On the loan it self there could be various things that are not true. Another area that can really affect the approval loan is the income level of the applicants. It's not uncommon to list false income and even come up with documents to back that up when in fact, they really are not true.  This is creating fraud against the mortgage company.

One thing that is used to document income is tax returns and today these are very easy to forge as well. The Internet makes it simple to go in and doctor your tax returns to come up with a different copy than what was actually sent to the IRS.

There are many other different types of real estate mortgage fraud. Some of these have been flipping situations, equity skimming, and the pretend homeowner loan. Regardless of how it's done real estate and mortgage fraud is illegal, and can be punishable by large fines and prison time.