Fraud Prevention Track: Identifying Fraud Schemes in Mortgage Transactions September 16, 2019 Moderator Katherine Hollister, Vice President, Quality Control, TPO, Home Mortgage, Citizens Bank Speakers Jennifer Horne, Vice President, Anti-Fraud and Anti-Money Laundering, Fannie Mae Geoffrey Oliver, CPA CMB, AMP, Chief Executive Officer, The Hilltop Companies Teresa Blake, Managing Director, KPMG Fraud Focus – Borrower or Lender/Servicer Does your Company focus on all or some of these “fraudsters”? • Borrower – application issues, employer verification, cash available and collusion, • Loan officer, • Underwriter, • Secondary market employees, • Title company & employees, • Investor or Insurer & employees, • Senior Management/officer, • Others? Fraud Happens! What happened in these Frauds and how was it carried out: A. Lender creates two versions of the loan/note. Two Notes are signed by the borrower - the Lender creates each note with different rates and sells the loan with the low rate to the secondary market. This fraud is typically executed with higher risk loans and Lender uses the spread to offset defaulted loan costs). No fraud based questions are asked of the borrower by the loan investor. B. Duplicate loan sales to different investors or “double warehousing”. Lender creates “duplicate notes” (eNotes are effective fraud prevention in most cases) and sends to the buyer of the loan and/or to the warehouse banks that finance the lender. The failure to detect occurs most often due to poor document controls and the lack of reconciliation (in place at the custodian, warehouse lender and the lender’s accounting staff) of what loans are sold or warehoused between the parties. More Fraud Happens! C. Company uses PI & TI and loan payoff funds for corporate needs, payroll, advances, etc. The Lender has poor liquidity and it uses collected servicing funds (principal and interest, payoffs, tax and insurance escrows) for corporate needs, payroll, advances, etc. Poor reconciliation of the advances actually made by the Company, what the Servicing Advance receivable balance is per the financials and the amounts per the servicing system (what the balance of the investor/mortgagor trust accounts should be and the respective cash accounts). D. Fraudulent financials and/or tax returns for borrowers that are business owners, fraudulent tax preparers, IRS transcripts. Self-employed borrowers are very difficult to underwrite. Falsified financials and/or tax returns are the primary issue. Tax preparers will create fraudulent tax returns and the Lender fails to obtain IRS transcripts. Even More Fraud Happens? E. Off-balance sheet servicing cash accounts (non-banks) Non-bank servicers will not show the balance of the trust servicing accounts in the financials. Controls over these off-balance sheet servicing cash accounts may not exist which allows servicing personnel to set up cash accounts to move funds into their personal accounts. F. Support loan approval and/or Investor requirements LO’s or others make changes to the application and supporting documents to demonstrate basis for approval or investor purchase. And Even More Fraud Happens? G. Lender/servicer financial statement fraud to meet net worth requirements, liquidity and other bank loan covenants, etc. Given higher net worth, liquidity, debt to equity and other financial metrics to be approved by Federal agencies, warehouse banks, loan investors, etc. – the Company (senior management) commits fraud to ensure that the financial statements will meet the applicable requirement. Other Frauds that have Evolved Loan modification schemes: Perpetrator offers to renegotiate the mortgage terms with the lender for an upfront fee – more often than not the mortgage is not modified and the borrower loses the property and the fees paid. Air loans and Property flipping: Sale occurs with a false/straw borrower, falsified appraisal and loan documentation; inflated borrower financial information with kickbacks to one or more of the following: the loan officer, straw-buyer, realtors, appraisers and title company employees. The Perpetrator may establish an office with a bank of telephones, each one used as the fake employer, appraiser, credit agency, etc., to fraudulently deceive creditors who attempt to verify information on loan applications. Equity skimming: An investor may use a straw buyer, false income documents, and false credit reports to obtain a mortgage loan in the straw buyer’s name. Subsequent to closing, the straw buyer signs the property over to the investor in a quit claim deed, which relinquishes all rights to the property and provides no guaranty to title. The investor does not make any mortgage payments and often rents the property until foreclosure takes place several months later. Silent second: The property buyer borrows the down payment from the seller through the issuance of a non- disclosed second mortgage. The primary lender believes the borrower has invested his own money in the down payment, when in fact, it is borrowed. The second mortgage may not be recorded to further conceal its status from the primary lender. Other Frauds that have Evolved Home equity conversion mortgage (HECM): A HECM is a FHA reverse mortgage loan for borrowers who are 62 years or older. Perpetrators take advantage of the HECM borrower’s lack of knowledge. The scammer obtains a HECM loan in the name of the homeowner to convert the owner’s equity in the home into cash. The appraisal on the home is often inflated. The scammer often pays some amount to the Homeowner and keeps the remaining cash. The Homeowner does not find out because a HECM loan does not require any monthly payment. The fraud is identified when the borrower sells the house or when the Homeowner dies and the HECM needs to be paid off. Hackers Stealing Your Down Payment – hackers intercept deposit money transfers to realtor or title company Foreclosure rescue schemes: Service type company or Lender (perpetrator) misleads borrowers into believing they can save their homes by transferring the deed to an investor. Perpetrator profits by selling the property and/or stealing fees paid by the borrower and/or new buyer. The borrower may be told they can pay rent for at least a year and then repurchase the property once their credit has been reestablished. The Perpetrator fails to make any mortgage payments and the servicer forecloses. And more frauds occur every day! Jennifer Horne Fannie Mae Fraud Expert Fraud Tip Volume Appears to Have Stabilized 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 2017 2018 2019 © 2018 Fannie Mae. Trademarks of Fannie Mae. Schemes in Tips with Mortgage Fraud Investigative Findings 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Origination Loss Mitigation Title Fraud Flipping Reverse Foreclosure Affinity Fraud Equity Shotgunning Institutional Fraud Scheme Occupancy / Rescue Stripping Fraud Investment Property Q3 2017 - Q2 2018 Q3 2018 - Q2 2019 © 2018 Fannie Mae. Trademarks of Fannie Mae. Loans with Findings Identified by Origination Year 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 © 2018 Fannie Mae. Trademarks of Fannie Mae. Loans with Findings* by Origination Year Origination Year Assets Credit Income Liabilities Occupancy Property SSN Title Value 2005 4% 24% 12% 25% 12% 10% 6% 1% 6% 2006 2% 26% 16% 27% 13% 7% 3% 0% 5% 2007 3% 24% 16% 24% 14% 9% 2% 0% 7% 2008 7% 20% 17% 20% 12% 11% 3% 0% 9% 2009 15% 16% 15% 14% 14% 9% 6% 1% 10% 2010 15% 14% 21% 11% 19% 4% 9% 3% 4% 2011 17% 14% 10% 17% 10% 9% 3% 11% 8% 2012 13% 8% 9% 6% 16% 12% 1% 9% 26% 2013 10% 14% 13% 4% 21% 12% 1% 2% 23% 2014 10% 12% 17% 4% 43% 6% 1% 2% 6% 2015 6% 9% 24% 4% 30% 19% 1% 0% 7% 2016 12% 6% 24% 28% 11% 10% 1% 2% 5% 2017 8% 5% 41% 24% 19% 0% 0% 1% 0% 2018 18% 3% 30% 26% 17% 5% 0% 1% 1% 2019 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% * Through Q2 2019. © 2018 Fannie Mae. Trademarks of Fannie Mae. Teresa Blake KPMG Fraud Practice The Fraud Landscape • Albany, Schenectady, Troy NY 61% • McAllen, Edinburg, Mission TX 35% • Tulsa OK 6% Simple Prevention Steps 1. Run Fraud Guard (or similar tool) lights out at multiple points in the origination process (Post application, pre-underwrite) 2. Leverage employment, income & asset verification & validation services 3. Conduct a pre-funding QC review of loan file & Fraud Guard results and open actions when issues are found 4. Re-Train Underwriters on new fraud schemes at a minimum bi-annually 5. Conduct post-funding QC reviews on loan files that had suspicious activity alerts 6. Conduct a post-mortem analysis on all confirmed fraud cases & re-train associates 7. Review Bank SAR activity to assess fraud schemes in other parts of the bank & share learnings Questions for the Panel Panel Questions • Which are the most frequent types of fraud? • Which are the most costly? • How are frauds committed via internet-based origination channels? • How are most frauds found? • What are the largest frauds the panel has seen? • How does collusion by several key parties affect the fraud – prevention, detection, loss impact, remediation efforts? • Has the panel seen the use of publicized “whistle blower” sites/phone #s increase and how effective are these tools? • When a lender/servicer identifies borrower fraud – does the Company extend the fraud investigation to look internally? • What are the ramifications for lenders/servicers when a fraud is found? Have lenders/servicers “covered up” frauds? • If fraud is found – various regulators and Federal agencies will want to be involved – examples?.