The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD), Office of Inspector General reviewed the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Preforeclosure Sale Program. Our objective was to determine whether FHA paid claims for only preforeclosure sales that met the criteria for participation in the program. We found that 61 of 80 statistically selected claims from September 1, 2010, through August 31, 2011 did not meet the criteria for…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG) audited HUD’s oversight of its real estate-owned (REO) Management and Marketing (M&M) III program in response to a HUD OIG auditability survey on REO contract administration. Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD’s policies and procedures provided for efficient and effective oversight of asset managers and field service managers under…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD), Office of Inspector General reviewed HUD’s receivership of the East St. Louis Housing Authority based on the length of receivership and issues identified during recent external audits. Our objective was to determine whether HUD effectively oversaw and managed the recovery and turnaround of the Authority during the three-year period ending in September 2011. HUD did not effectively…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) oversight of Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans. We initiated the audit as part of the activities in our 2011 annual audit plan and strategic plan. Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD had adequate oversight of lenders’ compliance with FHA’s underwriting requirements…

As part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) annual plan, we audited HUD’s controls over the Section Eight Management Assessment Program (SEMAP). Our objective was to determine whether HUD had adequate controls to ensure that SEMAP effectively assessed public housing agencies’ Section 8 administration. HUD had not developed adequate controls to ensure that SEMAP would be effective…

We performed an audit of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling based on a citizen’s complaint alleging that it misused Federal funds. Our objective was to determine whether the Foundation complied with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requirements when administering its housing counseling program. The complaint alleging that the Foundation misused Federal funds could not be substantiated. The Foundation generally…

We audited the West Village Expansion Project in Durham, NC, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Section 220-insured property, due to a citizen’s hotline complaint. The anonymous complainant alleged that the managing member of the project’s ownership entity spent an excessive amount of project funds on legal fees, transferred more than $500,000 to another entity owned by it, and failed to keep the mortgage current. Our…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG), conducted a review of loans underwritten by Countrywide Home Loans Inc., and its divisions Countrywide Bank FSB and Countrywide Mortgage Ventures, LLC. The objective of the review was to determine whether Countrywide underwrote Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans in accordance with HUD-FHA regulations. Countrywide is a subsidiary of Bank of…

We audited the public housing program of the Housing Authority of the City of Hickory, NC, due to a citizen’s hotline complaint. Our objectives were to evaluate the merits of the complaint allegations and determine whether the Authority complied with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requirements for procurement, cash disbursements, a 2004 Resident Opportunity and Self-Sufficiency (ROSS) grant, and inventory control. The…

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…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Inspector General audited the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer based on concerns about security risks of hard drives in multifunction devices. Our objective was to determine whether HUD had documented and implemented procedures to effectively remove sensitive data from the hard drives of multifunction devices before disposing of them. HUD did not monitor or test the…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General reviewed HUD’s Section 242 Mortgage Insurance for Hospitals program to determine whether HUD established controls to approve and administer projects under the Section 242 program and whether HUD used an updated handbook to administer its Section 242 program and used and provided to program participants written guidance that had been approved through HUD’s…

HUD OIG conducted an annual limited scope audit of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) compliance with the reporting requirements of the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 (IPIA) as amended. Each agency’s inspector general is required to review and report on the agency’s annual financial report and accompanying materials. We performed our audit in conjunction with our audit of HUD’s consolidated financial…

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 reviews.…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) oversight of its Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program based on our annual audit plan and our strategic goal to improve the integrity of HUD’s single-family programs. This is the first of two reports that we plan to issue on HUD’s oversight of the program. Our objective was to determine whether HUD’s controls effectively ensured that HECM loan borrowers complied…

We audited the Second Northwest Cooperative Homes Association’s administration of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Section 236 program based on a hotline complaint. Our audit objective was to determine if the Association properly identified and remitted excess income to HUD according to its regulatory agreement and whether it hired staff according to applicable HUD regulations. We found that the Association did not…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) monitoring of its Multifamily Accelerated Processing program lenders. The audit was performed based on a hotline complaint and the Office of Inspector General’s annual audit and strategic plan to help HUD improve its fiscal responsibilities. The objective of the audit was to determine whether HUD adequately approved and selected program lenders to monitor. HUD generally…

In accordance with our audit plan we audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Philadelphia, PA, Homeownership Center’s quality assurance procedures for monitoring originations of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) single-family mortgage loans. Our audit objective was to determine whether the Homeownership Center properly monitored single-family loan originations in its jurisdiction by implementing quality assurance…

We selected the tribe for audit because it received a $4.7 million formula grant and a $4 million competitive grant, the largest Native American Housing Block Grants awarded in North Carolina under the Recovery Act. Our objective was to determine whether the tribe administered its Native American Housing Block Grants in compliance with Recovery Act and other applicable requirements, specifically, whether it had (1) expended funds on a timely…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) field review appraisal process. This audit was conducted as part of the HUD Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) fiscal year 2011 annual audit plan and was designed to follow up on selected findings in OIG’s Audit Report 2008-LA-0003 on the appraiser review process. Our objective was to determine whether HUD (1) ensured that field review appraisers complied with the appraisal…