Mortgage fraud
From CaseyPedia
Mortgage fraud is the catch-all term used to describe crimes that relate to lying about personal information on mortgage applications. Generally, the crime takes the form of an individual defrauding a financial institution by misrepresenting key information on their application. In most jurisdictions, mortgage fraud is a felony offense.
Casey Serin has repeatedly admitted to committing multiple instances of mortgage fraud using different tactics, including the following:
- Occupancy Fraud -- Serin lied on eight separate applications about his intention to reside in the purchased home, likely securing for himself a lower interest rate.
- Income Fraud -- Serin mis-stated his income to varying degrees, which was possible on the so-called "stated income" loans he used. For the houses purchased while Serin was working, Serin claimed an income roughly five or six times his actual take home pay (see transcript below). For the houses purchased while Serin was unemployed, the fact that Serin claimed any income at all constitutes fraud.
- Liability Fraud -- it is speculated that Serin neglected to mention that he was carrying a significant amount of credit card debt on some of his loan applications.
- Cash Back Fraud -- colloquially referred to by Serin as cash back at close. Most of the houses Serin purchased were fraudulently appraised at higher values than actual, ostensibly so that Serin could receive some extra money for needed repairs. Serin collected roughly $200,000 in cash back between all his house purchases, and though he claims the money was used to pay the mortgages, it seems likely that some of the money was either stashed somewhere and/or used for personal luxuries.
The crimes were admitted to both on his blog, on a webcam video, and on some of his talkcasts. One instance of an admission occurred during the March 21, 2007 talkcast:
- Gordon: But that wasn’t income that was money that you were using for something else. It was already pre-used. I mean, you can’t claim that it’s...
- Serin: Yeah, you’re right. Technically it was a loan. At the same time, if I’m able to sell that then it ends up being income. So it was early take out of the profit; that’s the way I saw it. Now whether it was right or wrong to see it, that’s a different story. I’m just telling you how I was looking at it at the time.
- Gordon: Right. So you’re saying that on some of your applications you probably said you were making $250,000 or $300,000?
- Serin: That was probably the case unless that was one of the ones I did a no doc loan because one of them I didn’t state anything; I was just able to qualify. It was a higher interest rate but I love those no doc loans, they’re the best because you’re never stating anything so no one can ever go back and say you were lying on your application...[1]
Although Serin freely admits to multiple felonies, he does not believe he should serve any jail time -- amazingly, Serin has rationalized that the alleged stress and hardship he is currently experiencing is enough punishment.
Also see: subject2 LegalMumboJumbo
