U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government Here’s how you know

The .gov means it’s official.

Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

The site is secure.

The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Hotline

Report Fraud, Waste and Abuse
Date Published
August 21, 2013
News Type
Article
Link to Original
Yahoo Finance

Reports of mortgage fraud declined in 2012, the first decrease in such reports since the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) started tracking them in 2002.

FinCEN received 69,277 Mortgage Loan Fraud Suspicious Activity Reports (MLF SARs) in 2012, 25% fewer than the record 92,561 in 2011.

In its report, FinCEN associates the decrease with an unusual spike in MLF SARs filed in 2011, which resulted from an influx of mortgage repurchase demands. Nearly 80% of MLF SARs filed in 2011 included repurchase requests — only 14% of MLF SARs included repurchase requests in 2010.

After mortgages that originated during the housing bubble defaulted, mortgage security holders could request the lender to repurchase the loan, once the security holder could provide evidence of fraud.