We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) oversight of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) refunds based on a hotline complaint alleging that HUD was trying to make it difficult for claimants to obtain refunds or discourage them from pursuing the refunds, which are due to eligible homeowners from the unearned portion of the upfront mortgage insurance premium paid.  Our audit found the allegations from the…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG), completed a corrective action verification (CAV) of recommendations from four prior home equity conversion mortgage (HECM) audit reports.  The CAV was initiated because protecting the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mutual mortgage insurance fund is one of HUD’s top management challenges.  The prior audits determined that HUD lacked…

We audited selected general and application controls over the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) Home Equity Reverse Mortgage Information Technology (HERMIT) system as part of the internal control assessments required for the fiscal year 2019 financial statement audit under the Chief Financial Officer’s Act of 1990.  Our objective was to review the selected controls over HERMIT for compliance with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban…

As part of the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) effort to provide oversight of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) relief efforts provided by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), we reviewed HUD’s responses to inquiries regarding forbearance and foreclosure relief.  The objective of our review was to evaluate the accuracy of HUD’s responses to inquiries from borrowers, industry…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General, audited Englewood Apartments’ Project-Based Section 8 Rental Assistance program based on a request from HUD’s Region 7 Office of Multifamily Housing Programs.  HUD conducted a management and occupancy review in January 2018 to assess the overall quality of management and services provided in accordance with HUD guidelines and instructions.  Overall…

In 2016, we began a series of audits in accordance with our goal to review the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) multifamily housing programs.  We issued five reports detailing violations found at Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA) properties in HUD’s Southwest Region.  This assignment is a rollup of those five reports.  In addition, we reviewed HUD’s controls to ensure that its housing assistance…

This report presents the results of our audit of FHA’s principal financial statements and notes for the fiscal years ending September 30, 2019 and 2018, including our report on FHA’s internal control and test of compliance with selected provisions of laws, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements. In our opinion, FHA’s fiscal years 2019 and 2018 financial statements were presented fairly, in all material respects, in accordance with the U.S…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans from fiscal year 2018.  Our audit objective was to determine whether FHA provided insurance on loans that were made to ineligible, delinquent Federal tax debtors. We found that FHA insured at least 56,376 loans worth $13 billion, which were not eligible for insurance because they were made to…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) monitoring of the financial performance of Section 232 nursing homes based on the size of their program, the inherent risks in the program, the length of time since our last audit, and the inclusion of this review in the annual audit plan.  Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD had sufficient financial information and used this information to adequately…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Inspector General audited HUD’s single-family note sales program.  This is the third in a series of audits on the note sales program.  The first audit, 2017-KC-0006, reported that HUD did not conduct rulemaking or develop formal procedures for its single-family note sales program.  The second audit, 2017-KC-0010, reported that HUD generally ensured that…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) approval of Section 232 Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans based on our initiative to focus HUD management’s attention on problems areas with the Section 232 program.  Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD approved Section 232 FHA-insured loans for projects that qualified for mortgage insurance in accordance with HUD requirements. HUD…