We audited the Lake View Towers Apartments’ Section 8 housing assistance payments program based on our analysis of risk factors related to multifamily projects in Region 5’s jurisdiction and the activities included in our fiscal year 2019 annual audit plan.  Our audit objective was to determine whether the management agent administered the project’s program in accordance with the owner’s contract with the U.S. Department of Housing and…

We audited PK Management, LLC, based on (1) media coverage of problems associated with Essex Village, an apartment complex in Virginia that it managed, and (2) issues identified in our prior audit of PK Management in Birmingham, AL.  Our audit objective was to determine whether PK Management assisted eligible tenants and maintained documentation to support the housing assistance payments it received for residents of the properties it…

We completed a corrective action verification (CAV) of recommendations 1A and 1C from prior OIG audit report 2015-LA-0001 (issued April 20, 2015).  The CAV was initiated based on preliminary analysis, which identified potential ineligible partial claims.  The prior audit determined that the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) claim payment system failed to identify two types of ineligible partial claims.  As part of its…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) based on the results of another audit, which found that the lender improperly filed for partial claims before completing the loan modifications and reinstating the loans.  Our audit objective was to determine whether FHA improperly paid partial claims that did not reinstate the delinquent loans. We found…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited Bank of America because it has released more than 47,000 Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans into the Distressed Asset Stabilization Program (DASP) note sales program.  Since its inception, DASP has facilitated the sale of more than 108,000 FHA loans, which means that Bank of America accounts for nearly half of the entire program…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG), assisted the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York in a civil investigation of Gateway Funding Diversified Mortgage Services, LP, now known as Finance of America Mortgage, LLC (FAM).  Gateway was a Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-approved mortgage lender.  On May 31, 2015,…

We audited selected general and application controls over the Federal Housing Administration’s Computerized Homes Underwriting Management System as part of the internal control assessments required for the fiscal year 2018 financial statement audit under the Chief Financial Officer’s Act of 1990.  Our objective was to review the effectiveness of controls for compliance with HUD information technology policies and Federal information system…

We audited the general controls over the Integrated Pool Management System (IPMS) as part of the internal control assessments required for the fiscal year 2018 financial statements audit under the Chief Financial Officer’s Act of 1990.  Our objective was to evaluate and assess internal controls over the safeguarding of data, security, and continued operations in the event of unexpected interruptions.  Specifically, we examined the…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG), assisted the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern and Western Districts of Washington in the civil investigation of Universal American Mortgage Company, LLC.  Our investigation was ongoing when a qui tam action was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.  Universal…

We audited the Civic Towers, LLLP, and Civic Towers Senior, LLLP, Section 8 project-based housing assistance payment (HAP) program.  We selected the Civic Towers and Civic Towers Senior Section 8 project-based properties for review based on a referral from our Office of Investigation regarding a potential duplication of benefits between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (…

The Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 (Public Law 101-576), as amended, requires the Office of Inspector General to audit the financial statements of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) annually. We audited the accompanying financial statements and notes of FHA as of and for the fiscal years ending September 30, 2018 and 2017 (restated), which are comprised of the balance sheets, related statements of net cost and changes in net…

This report presents the results of our audit of Ginnie Mae’s fiscal years 2018 and 2017 financial statements, including our report on Ginnie Mae’s internal control and test of compliance with selected provisions of laws and regulations applicable to Ginnie Mae. In fiscal year 2018, for the fifth consecutive year, we were unable to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to express an opinion on the fairness of the $3 billion (net of allowance)…

We audited Rainbow Terrace Apartments based on our analysis of risk factors related to multifamily projects in Region 5’s jurisdiction and the activities included in our fiscal year 2018 annual audit plan.  Our objective was to determine whether the project’s owner and management agent operated the project in accordance with the regulatory agreement and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) requirements. The project…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Office of Inspector General (OIG) worked with HUD’s Office of Lender Activities and Program Compliance, Office of Single Family Housing, to resolve outstanding matters related to two September 2015 agreements with Fifth Third Bank (FTB) and its principal subsidiary, Fifth Third Bancorp, an Ohio-based bank holding company.  HUD failed to properly record required indemnifications in…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) preforeclosure sale claim process based on an internal Office of Inspector General audit suggestion noting that existing regulations may allow excessive preforeclosure claim interest costs.  Our audit objective was to determine the amount of unnecessary preforeclosure claim interest and other costs that resulted from lender…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General, audited the lender, Berkeley Point Capital, and the underwriting for the Second and Delaware project loan.  We initiated the review of the loan underwriting based on a previous review of the Second and Delaware project, which focused on the construction and development of the project.  The almost $46 million project is Federal Housing Administration (…

We performed a review of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Housing Counseling Program, located within the Office of Housing Counseling.  We selected this program based on an audit suggestion that was included in our annual audit plan to help address HUD’s strategic goal to strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy and protect consumers.  Our objective was to determine whether HUD adequately…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) tracking of partial claim notes.  The audit was initiated in response to an Office of Inspector General preaudit analysis of HUD’s Single Family Data Warehouse (SFDW) data, which determined that partial claim notes may not have been properly tracked in HUD’s Single Family Mortgage Asset Recovery Technology (SMART) system (see Scope & Methodology section for…

We audited Luther Towers II because it was a high-risk multifamily project that received low inspection and financial assessment scores on our multifamily risk assessment for projects within our region and we had never audited it.  Our audit objective was to determine whether the owner managed the project in accordance with its regulatory agreement and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requirements. The owner of Luther…

The U.S. Department of Housing Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited HUD to determine whether it identified and collected outstanding partial claims out of surplus proceeds from nonconveyance foreclosures.  We initiated this audit because we learned while doing unrelated audit work that a trustee attorney held surplus proceeds from two nonconveyance foreclosures and HUD had not claimed these funds to offset earlier…