The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG), assisted the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts in the civil investigation of First American Mortgage Trust.  First American has its principal place of business in Brighton, MA, and does business as NXTLoan.Com Corp., a Delaware corporation.  First American is the parent company of NXTL. On October 18, 2016, First…

Sons of Divine Providence did not properly oversee the HUD-insured nursing home to ensure that it operated in accordance with its regulatory agreement.  By not informing HUD of the lawsuits, the changes in management agents, and the loans, Sons of Divine Providence did not provide HUD the necessary data to understand the risk to the HUD insurance fund.  However, when Sons of Divine Providence sold the nursing home and paid off the HUD…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG), referred alleged violations to HUD’s Office of Program Enforcement for action under the Program Fraud Civil Remedies Act based on two audits of DHI Mortgage Company Ltd.  (DHIM) that found it did not follow HUD requirements when it underwrote Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans with prohibited restrictive addenda to the purchase…

We audited Coconut Grove Apartments due to concerns expressed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Multifamily Housing Programs regarding the management of the project.  The main concern was that the owner may have diverted project funds for nonproject expenses.  Our audit objective was to determine whether Coconut Grove’s owner operated its Sections 223(f) and 241(a)-insured multifamily rental…

We audited NOVA Financial & Investment Corporation based on a referral from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Quality Assurance Division detailing a separate lender that originated Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans that contained ineligible downpayment assistance gifts.  The HUD Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) analysis identified NOVA as a lender with the highest origination volume in the…

HUD OIG conducted a civil investigation of an alleged loan origination fraud scheme involving a cash-out refinance loan that was insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).  FHA provides mortgage insurance on loans made by FHA-approved lenders to creditworthy borrowers.  Borrowers must occupy the properties as their primary residence for at least 1 year.  Borrowers certify to their intent to occupy the property when…

We audited the Housing Authority of the City of Meridian’s Queen City apartments at the request of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Single Family Office of Asset Management.  Our objectives were to determine whether the Authority acquired, financed, and managed the purchase of the apartments in accordance with applicable regulations and determine the cause of the Queen City apartments’ Federal Housing…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General audited Allen Mortgage, Limited Liability Company, a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) nonsupervised lender. We selected Allen Mortgage for audit based on its high default and claim rate for the FHA-insured loans sponsored in Region 5. Our objectives were to determine whether (1) Allen Mortgage complied with HUD’s regulations, procedures, and instructions in…

We audited the Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loan process at MetLife Bank’s (lender) branch in Scottsdale, AZ, to determine whether the lender underwrote FHA-insured loans and implemented a quality control plan in accordance with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requirements. We selected the lender because it had an FHA default rate of 7.41 percent for loans underwritten in Arizona between April 1, 2009, and…

We audited the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA), a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-approved organization providing housing counseling services to qualified home buyers or homeowners with unaffordable mortgage payments. The audit was initiated at the direction of HUD's Inspector General. Our audit objective was to determine whether NACA properly administered its HUD grants used for housing counseling…

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 review…

We completed a review of the Retreat at Santa Rita Springs (community), a Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured multifamily project under Section 231 of the National Housing Act. Our audit was in response to a request for audit from Representative Gabrielle Giffords of the 8th District of Arizona. The owner defaulted on the $29.9 million U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-insured mortgage in November 2009, the month…

We audited Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loan processes at two DHI Mortgage Company, LTD (DHI Mortgage), branches in Scottsdale, AZ, to determine whether DHI Mortgage originated, approved, and closed FHA-insured single-family loans in accordance with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requirements. We recently conducted an audit of DHI Mortgage’s Tucson and Scottsdale branches and identified significant…

We audited FHA-insured loan processes at two DHI Mortgage Company, LTD (DHI Mortgage) branches in Tucson and Scottsdale, Arizona, to determine whether DHI Mortgage originated, approved, and closed FHA-insured single-family loans in accordance with HUD requirements. We chose DHI Mortgage because the Scottsdale, Arizona, branch had a default rate that was double the default rate for FHA-insured loans for the state of Arizona, and then expanded…

We audited Campaige Place at Jackson (Campaige Place) to determine whether it used its project funds in compliance with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) regulatory agreement and other federal requirements. Campaige Place did not use its project funds in compliance with HUD’s and other federal requirements. Specifically, we determined that: •Owner advances of $73,750 were repaid when the project had no surplus cash…

We reviewed the use of contract fee inspectors by the Office of Multifamily Housing Boston Hub (Boston Hub) as part of our 2007 annual audit plan. This review was initiated because U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) staff rely on contract fee inspectors to oversee the work of contractors performing renovation work on HUD-insured properties. Our objective was to determine whether the Boston Hub effectively used contract fee…

BOSTON – The principal and co-founder of a North Andover mortgage short sale assistance company was sentenced yesterday in connection with defrauding mortgage lenders and investors out of nearly $500,000 in proceeds from about 90 short sale transactions. Jaime L. Mulvihill, 40, was sentenced by U.S. Senior District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel to six months in prison, two years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of…