Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Mortgage fraud on the rise

Nicolas Van Praet Feb 21, 2012 – 7:19 AM ET

MONTREAL — Consumer credit company Equifax uncovered roughly $400-million worth of mortgage fraud in Canada last year, an “eyeopening” number industry experts estimate represents only a fraction of the cheating taking place in the country’s real estate market.

Atlanta-based Equifax says many financial institutions are tightening lending and, as a result, deceit in the property market is rising. A report the company released Tuesday says two-thirds of all the fraud it sniffed out last year was related to real estate.

“Mortgages are the biggest bang for the buck,” said John Russo, vice-president and legal counsel for Equifax Canada Inc. “So when credit gets tougher to get, that leads to more people falsifying documents, giving false pay stubs, inflating their income, kind of fudging things to get a home.”

The $400-million in mortgage fraud represents only a sliver of the roughly $1-trillion in total residential mortgage credit outstanding at the moment in Canada. But it rose sharply in 2011 from 2010 in dollar terms, increasing 150%, Equifax data suggest.

The figure is “eye-opening,” Mr. Russo says, because that’s just the amount Equifax flushed out on its own for its clients. “There’s a lot more out there that just goes under the radar and is not seen and not caught.”

Often tracking strong housing markets, mortgage fraud occurs nationally but is more concentrated in large urban areas in Quebec, Ontario, Albert and B.C., says the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, a federal agency that shares intelligence between police forces. Numerous criminal groups across Canada are involved in a wide range of mortgage frauds at varying levels, the CISC says, sometimes with the help of industry insiders such as property agents, mortgage brokers and lawyers.

One growing trend is people setting up fictitious identities, building up credit for those fake people and then using the credit to borrow. Equifax says five years ago it had identified 300 such fictitious identities in its national database. Now there are more than 2,500.

Using mortgage fraud to further other criminal activity is also common. Criminals are buying properties to open marijuana growing operations, to trade drugs and to launder money.

An increasing number are getting caught and there’s been a dramatic increase in criminal and civil forfeiture cases as a result, said Andrew Bury, a lawyer specializing in loan security enforcement at Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP in Vancouver.

“They’re grabbing these properties left, right and centre. And over and over again they’re crashing into the mortgage companies, the banks, [which are saying] ‘Wait a second, we have a mortgage on that property.’ “

Lenders are losing big sums while governments reap the re-wards of the seizures, Mr. Bury said.

But the bulk of mortgage swindling still involves ordinary people lying to obtain mortgages larger than their income can support, Equifax said. They’re living in homes that are simply too rich for them. Says Mr. Russo: “No matter how small or big the lie, it’s still mortgage fraud.”

It sometimes takes years for fraud to come to light, notes Toronto forensic accountant Al Rosen. He believes controls in the banking system remain inadequate.

“I see all sorts of situations where the appraised value of [properties] is just laughable. And some of these are not checked out very well,” he says. “Because the only thing that really counts is: What can you sell that property for?”

Canada’s highest-profile mortgage fraud to date is perhaps the case of Martin Wirick, a Vancouver lawyer sentenced to seven years in prison in 2009 for fraud and forgery in an elaborate scheme covering 107 separate real estate transactions conducted on behalf of his client, real estate developer Tarsem Singh Gill.

The scheme was so huge that the Law Society of B.C. raised special contributions from its lawyer members to compensate the victims. As of 2009, it had paid out $38.4-million for the Wirick fraud alone. Over a 40-year period before that, the society’s compensation fund disbursed a total of $52-million for all cases of lawyer misappropriation.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Looser mortgage lending raises worries

Garry Marr Feb 2, 2012 – 2:25 PM ET | Last Updated: Feb 2, 2012 6:21 PM ET

Financial institutions appear to be cracking down on rules for borrowers with self-declared income, a move that comes as Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said he’s concerned about a lack standards in the sector.

Responding to a question about whether the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions was looking into the practice of banks loosening their standards for so-called stated income mortgages, Mr. Flaherty confirmed it is an issue.

“OSFI’s concern arises out of some work that OSFI has done as part of it – the ordinary course of its business to look at some of the — some of the loans being made by financial institutions. I was informed of what their assessment showed with respect to a few financial institutions which is a matter of concern and that is — that is being corrected,” he said.

The Financial Post first reported last month that the government was looking at another round of tough new mortgage rules, among the considerations being a crackdown on how the self-employed qualify.

Stated-income products have become very popular during this housing boom, allowing more banks to get involved in loaning to the self-employed. A source indicated many financial institutions have looked more at the financial behaviour of the self-employed — about 13% of the market — because income is hard to verify.

Vince Gaetano, principal of Monster Mortgage confirmed that CIBC’s wholesale arm FirstLine Mortgages Inc. is pulling out of the stated-income business. Mr. Gaetano said Street Capital Financial Corporation has followed the CIBC lead and he expects other financial institutions to follow very soon.

“We are hearing rumblings that everybody is going to be tightening up in the next week,” he said. “What’s happening is one person leads and everybody follows.”

What it ultimately means for the self-employed is they will end up back in the arms of non–traditional lenders and that means higher rates for them — something they faced in the housing market about five years ago.



“It’s bit like we are going back in history,” said one economist, who didn’t want to be named. “This is the way it used to be before the market took off.”

For his part, Mr. Gaetano said the federal government should blame itself for loosening standards on the minimum down payment required before consumers have to get mortgage default insurance. The government required 25% down last decade but it has since been lowered to 20%.

“The reason it changed is the banks were pushing their line of credit products. They could only lend up to 75% and they wanted the extra 5% to go to 80% without insurance under the Bank Act,” said Mr. Gaetano.

That drop in the minimum down payment could also be attributed to the banks being forced to buy more portfolio insurance for loans that have more than 20% down.

The banks have been seeking insurance on loans with even high down payments — something not required by law — so they can securitize those bulk lending loans, thereby getting them off their balance sheets and reducing their capital requirements. In those cases in which the loans to value is less than 80%, the bank pays the insurance charge instead of the consumer.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. acknowledged to the Financial Post this week it had talked to lenders about reducing its bulk or portfolio insurance as it tries to allocate its resources. The Crown corporation, which guarantees mortgages held by financial institutions, is ultimately backed by the federal government, but it is getting close to its $600-billion limit. Third quarter results showed it was backstopping $541-billion of loans.

Banks have been scrambling to deal with the CMHC change and are said to have contacted private insurance Genworth Financial Canada and Canada Guaranty Mortgage Insurance which together have a $300-billion limit guaranteed by Ottawa for loans they insure.