Several arrests in major mortgage fraud
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A team of officers and staff from Nottinghamshire Police’s Fraud and Financial Investigation Unit have today arrested several people in connection with a major mortgage fraud investigation.
Assisted by City of London Fraud Squad officers, warrants were executed at eight addresses, which resulted in six people being arrested.
Two premises are also being searched in the north west of England.
This is part of an extensive investigation into suspected fraud, where it is alleged that millions of pounds of funds have been obtained through fraudulent mortgages for properties in Nottingham and the surrounding area.
Nottinghamshire Police has not revealed the lenders involved but says it is continuing to work closely with the financial institutions involved and is also receiving assistance and cooperation from a number of other professional agencies.
Figures out today show that fraud costs an average of £600 on top of every mortgage granted in the UK.
The £600 figure has been calculated by UKValuation by combining their fraud data analysis with the latest lending statistics from the Council of Mortgage Lenders.
UKValuation is trialing its FraudMark product by two top tier lenders in the UK.
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Readers' comments (9)
Anonymous | 1 Dec 2009 6:01 pm
Lenders should be more discrimanatory to who they let introduce and i strongly believe every broker should be individually registered with the FSA which would help to eradicate bad brokers.
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An Admin | 2 Dec 2009 9:01 am
I think you might find that every broker already has to be registered with the FSA and that doesnt appear to have worked, does it!
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Melanie Samuels | 2 Dec 2009 9:30 am
I think registering all brokers direct would be a good thing but I am not sure it would eradicate fraud, numerous directly authorised individuals have fallen foul of the rules. The problem should be over now the lenders have tightened their belts and are more selective about which brokers and networks they deal with.
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Neil Patel | 2 Dec 2009 10:04 am
Currently the FSA does not require individual registration, only firms have to be registered. This means that the FSA has no means of checking which individuals are offering mortgage advice or even if they are suitably qualified. All a rouge broker needs is an FSA number of a regulated firm to register with lenders, they are not concerned about procuration fees as they charge high fees to their clients (3% in some cases). Wake up FSA!!!
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John Reid | 2 Dec 2009 10:54 am
FSA should individually register every single broker whether they are in a directly authorised firm or hiding in a network. I am aware of a lot of individuals who went in to networks on regulation day because they were not capable of abiding by any rules. They are still trading and by the sounds of it they are prospering with their large fees and shocking advice. EG in the past giving non-adverse people adverse mortgages to get higher proc fees or doing self cert to get higher fees when there was absolutely no need in the first place. The FSA should have got rid of these individuals in 2004 when they came to power however they left hiding places for these individuals which has allowed them to scam consumers and now they cant do that they are committing fraud to get their money. This industry needs cleaned up, alot of the ethical brokers are going out of business becasue they are advising their clients of the direct deals becasue it is the best advice for clients and the FSA is allowing this to happen. Shocking state of affairs. FSA are so out of touch with everything, with the amount of fraud being committed it just goes to prove that they have got this regulation so wrong.
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Salil Chaudhari | 2 Dec 2009 11:26 am
There should be mandatory input from representatives from the mortgage industry who have an impeccable track record with the FSA into FSA policy regarding regulation of the mortgage industry. They can foresee problems and eliminate them and regain lost reputation which the mortgage industry is in desparate need of.
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Stuart York | 3 Dec 2009 11:37 am
Individually registering each broker would be a complete headache for companies and an extra cost. The mortgage market is already being suffocated by the amount of admin and red tape it has to deal with. Anymore added and brokers may as well give up, and borrowers will just have to go direct to banks and be overcharged for their mortgages.
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Colin Cole | 4 Dec 2009 7:10 am
There is only one problem. Enforcement. Mortgage Fraud is FRAUD. Punishable in the US with up to 30 yrs in clink. see wikipedia definition. These brokers know what they are doing.If the FSA reported each case to the police as a CRIME instead of just sending these brokers to the naughty step. Perhaps the police themselves would take the problem SERIOUSLY. See President Obama's inititive "Obama's Task Force to Fight Mortgage Fraud and White-Collar Crimes"
THAT is taking this problem seriously. See also. "Mortgae Fraud costs AAL OF US £600 on the average mortgage."
It's a monumental problem that has to be taken SERIOUSLY.
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Anonymous | 4 Dec 2009 4:07 pm
I can see no valid reason why all advisers should not be registered with the FSA. This is already standard practice for Investment advisers. It makes no sense at all for this anomoly for mortgage and non-investment insurance advisers within a firm not to be registered at the FSA.
Just registering the firm leaves a wide loophole which seems to be exploited by some firms.
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