Thursday, Aug 30, 2007
The Fraud Element of HPI?
Times online: Police launch inquiry into suspected mortgage fraud gangs
Or as Jimmy2times so succinctly puts it 'the tip of the sh1tberg'!? I think the article speaks for itself really:
From The TimesAugust 30, 2007
Police launch inquiry into suspected mortgage fraud gangsElizabeth Colman and Gr�inne Gilmore
Detectives are investigating mortgage fraud rackets after lenders alerted City of London Police to an “unusually high” number of defaults on commercial and residential property loans over the past six months.
The reports have led the police to believe that criminal gangs, working with corrupt valuers and solicitors, are obtaining several mortgages at a time to build commercial property portfolios worth millions of pounds.
Posted by stonethecrows @ 12:26 AM (340 views) Add Comment
3 Comments
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1. crash bandicoot said...
"It’s just difficult to know the extent to which borrowers have lied about their income because the point of self-certification deals is that lenders don’t check"
I don't know about you but I could see that fundamental flaw in self-cert right from the start. I assume that the lenders could too, meaning that all of this "shock" is just a scam to give an air of "plausable denial" to proceedings.
2. captain sensible said...
Time for the surveyors and solicitors to baton down the hatches. As mortgage fraud prosecutions begin to raise their heads again the mass majority of honest surveyors will need to value cautiously, lest they be suspected of involvement in mortgage fraud. Good news - if surveyors value cautiously, those over inflated estate agent valuations will have to fall, if the buyers wants any chance of getting a mortgage. Honest solicitors also need to tread carefully. As I'm sure all the conveyancers out their know, suspicion that the client might have lied on a mortgage application brings the solicitor within the money laundering provisions. Now that the police are sniffing around, much more likely to get caught if turn a blind eye. A couple at least of niave (as opposed to intentionally criminal) solicitors have already spect time in jail as a result of this. Cheery thought that some of the professionals who make their living from property may be instrumental in speeding up the crash.
3. dohousescrashinthewoods said...
So, you mean that the chavs like Assetz who boasted in Daily-Mail-like tones about the millions they have made were actually criminals?
Well I never.