The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG), conducted a review to determine whether Indymac Bank followed Federal Housing Administration (FHA) policies and procedures when it originated FHA-insured loans. We identified a set of questionable loans originated by Indymac that had been generated by Beechwood Incorporated, a company that conducted various real estate services. Based on...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG), conducted a review to determine whether Indymac Bank followed Federal Housing Administration (FHA) policies and procedures when it originated FHA-insured loans. We identified a set of questionable loans originated by Indymac that had been generated by Beechwood Incorporated, a company that conducted various real estate services. Based on...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG), conducted a review to determine whether Indymac Bank followed Federal Housing Administration (FHA) policies and procedures when it originated FHA-insured loans. We identified a set of questionable loans originated by Indymac that had been generated by Beechwood Incorporated, a company that conducted various real estate services. Based on...

We completed a corrective action verification regarding the recommendations made to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Single Family Program Development pertaining to our review of HUD’s monitoring of the Housing Counseling Assistance Program, Audit Report 2006-NY-0001, issued June 8, 2006. The purpose of the corrective action verification was to determine whether the audit recommendations had been...

We reviewed alleged violations of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan origination requirements by the subject. We concluded that the subject placed fraudulent information and documents in mortgage loan applications for Government-insured home loans. The Department of Justice filed a complaint under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act; and in...

We reviewed alleged violations of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan origination requirements by the subject. We concluded that the subject created and altered documents used in mortgage loan applications for Government-insured home loans. The Department of Justice filed a complaint under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act; and in December...

We reviewed alleged violations of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan origination requirements by the subject. We concluded that the subject placed fraudulent information and documents in mortgage loan applications for Government-insured home loans. The Department of Justice filed a complaint under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act; and in...

As part of the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) nationwide effort to review the foreclosure practices of the five largest Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage servicers (Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank, CitiMortgage, JP Morgan Chase, and Ally Financial, Incorporated) we reviewed CitiMortgage’s foreclosure and claims processes. In addition to this memorandum, OIG issued separate memorandums for each of the other four...

As part of the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) nationwide effort to review the foreclosure practices of the five largest Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage servicers (Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank, CitiMortgage, JP Morgan Chase, and Ally Financial, Incorporated) we reviewed Wells Fargo’s foreclosure and claims processes. In addition to this memorandum, OIG issued separate memorandums for each of the other four...

As part of the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) nationwide effort to review the foreclosure practices of the five largest Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage servicers (Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank, CitiMortgage, JP Morgan Chase, and Ally Financial, Incorporated) we reviewed Bank of America’s foreclosure and claims processes. In addition to this memorandum, OIG issued separate memorandums for each of the other four...

As part of the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) nationwide effort to review the foreclosure practices of the five largest Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage servicers (Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank, CitiMortgage, JP Morgan Chase, and Ally Financial, Incorporated) we reviewed Ally Financial, Incorporated’s foreclosure and claims processes. In addition to this memorandum, OIG issued separate memorandums for each of...

As part of the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) nationwide effort to review the foreclosure practices of the five largest Federal Housing Administration (FHA) servicers (Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank, CitiMortgage, Ally Financial, Incorporated, and JPMorgan Chase Bank), we reviewed JPMorgan Chase Bank’s (Chase) foreclosure and claims processes. In addition to this memorandum, OIG issued separate memorandums for each of the...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) – Office of Inspector General (OIG) reviewed 46 Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans that Pierce Commercial Bank underwrote as an FHA direct endorsement lender. Pierce was a supervised FHA direct endorsement lender located in Tacoma, WA. This case was referred to us by OIG’s Office of Investigation. Our review objective was to determine whether Pierce underwrote 46...

We conducted a review to determine whether IndyMac Bank followed Federal Housing Administration (FHA) policies and procedures when it originated FHA-insured loans. We focused on loans secured by California properties and that were in claim or default status as of February 12, 2009. Within this group, we identified a set of questionable loans originated by IndyMac that had been generated by Beechwood Incorporated. Beechwood is a...

We reviewed alleged violations of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan origination requirements by the subject. We concluded that the subject made false statements on a mortgage loan application for one property, and falsely acted as the seller of a second property on behalf of another person. The Department of Justice filed a complaint under the Financial Institutions...

We reviewed alleged violations of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan origination requirements by the subject. We concluded that the subject falsely certified to the truthfulness and accuracy of documents and information in mortgage loan applications on FHA-insured loans. The Department of Justice filed a complaint under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and...

We reviewed alleged violations of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) real estate-owned (REO) owner-occupancy program requirements by the subject (name withheld for privacy reasons). We concluded that the subject failed to comply with the HUD REO program requirement that an individual who purchases a REO home during its initial offering period must be the owner-occupant of the purchased home for one full year. In...

In January 2010, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Office of Inspector General (OIG) began Operation Watchdog, an initiative to review the underwriting of 15 Federal Housing Administration (FHA) direct endorsement lenders having default and claim rates indicating lender performance problems. The FHA Commissioner had expressed concern regarding the increasing default and claim rates against the FHA insurance...

We reviewed Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loan settlement documents from two branches of DHI Mortgage Company, LTD (DHI Mortgage), in Arizona. During a previous audit of loan origination by the same branches (audit report number 2009-LA-1018), there was information indicating that the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (Act) might have been violated; however, we were unable to report on the issue at the time. Our...

As part of our annual audit plan objective of improving the integrity of single-family insurance programs, we reviewed the independent public accountant’s working papers and the financial statements of Allied Home Mortgage Capital Corporation (Allied) for fiscal year 2009. The objective of the review was to determine whether Allied’s fiscal year 2009 financial statements submitted to the Federal Housing Administration (FHA)...