CalHFA has announced it will end its School Facility Fee Down Payment Assistance Program, which has been responsible for providing more than 14,000 grants totaling more than $61 million. Associated with this down payment assistance was more than $3.3 billion in first mortgage loans for people purchasing newly constructed homes throughout California. The program currently has approximately $700,000 left in funds, and CalHFA anticipates the final funds being expended by the end of April.

CalHFA will continue to accept applications for SFF until funds are exhausted. Applications will be accepted on a first come, first served basis.

The California Dept. of Real Estate has issued a consumer alert about what to do if someone learns that a forged and/or fraudulent deed has been recorded against their real property.  According to the alert, those who have learned of the fraudulent deed must act immediately to protect their ownership interest in the home.  Homeowners should immediately gather and collect all of the information, documents, and other evidence and report the forged deed to:

• The local police and/or Sheriff’s department, and to such police agencies where the property is located (if different from where the owner resides.)

• The offices of the city and district attorneys where the home is located

• The office of the recorder in the county where the property is located

• The local city’s or county’s department of consumer affairs

• The California Secretary of State, Notary Public Section.

• The California Dept. of Real Estate

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San Francisco Chronicle – A federal court has frozen assets at five California companies that are being investigated for trying to scam U.S. homeowners facing foreclosure.

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The Apartment Owners Association is warning of a company called Successful Rent run by a lady named Sunny who is scamming rental property owners.

Sunny calls owners who have vacancies and claims she has prospective tenants from out of the country looking for homes.  She then sends someone over who fills out the rental application and gives the owner or manager a fake cashier’s check to hold the apartment.  She also says that she will run the credit report for the owner for free.

On the day of move-in, she calls the owner and says the tenant found another place and they would like their money back.  The owner then writes a check for the deposit amount and a week or two later, gets a letter from their bank saying the original cashier’s check was fraudulent.

Scammers are calling homeowners, offering to help save their homes by filing an application for them for the Keep Your Home California program, bilking the victims of as much as $900.  Applying for help from Keep Your Home California, from phone calls to getting mortgage help, is always free.

Homeowners can call this number to get information about assistance with mortgages: (888) 954-5337.

San Diego Union Tribune – State officials have noticed an emerging scam: Callers say they will help homeowners apply for Keep Your Home California benefits for fees of up to $900.  The calls are happening statewide.  Applying for the program is free.

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Financial institutions filed nearly 20,000 mortgage loan fraud suspicious activity reports in the third quarter, according to a report by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.  That was an increase from the approximately 16,500 reports filed in the same quarter of 2010.

Some of the types of suspicious activity reported included: some form of loan workout or debt elimination attempt, questionable refinance or loan modification attempts by borrowers or others targeting distressed homeowners, and Social Security number discrepancies submitted in the original loan application and the workout request.

Almost 62 percent of the filings reported involved suspicious activities that started four or more years ago. These filings stem largely from mortgage repurchase demands and special filings generated by several depository institutions related to mortgages originated in the height of the housing boom.

The top five counties ranked per capita were Santa Clara County, California; Honolulu County, Hawaii; Orange County, California; San Bernardino County, California; and Palm Beach County, Florida.

This alert is written to warn consumers about marketing companies, unlicensed entities, lawyers, and so-called attorney-backed, attorney-affiliated, and lawyer referral entities that offer and sell false hope and request the payment of upfront fees for so-called “mass joinder” or class litigation that will supposedly result in extraordinary home mortgage relief.

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I have found a serious error when my Windows 7 machine automatically updated my browser to IE9 without my permission. Now I cannot find the way to remove it, so Firefox has become my new browser!

How did this start, you might ask? I was doing work on our WordPress blog when I realized that upon posting, they were BLANK! This only started happening after the supposed “upgrade” to IE9.

For the life of me I cannot find where to roll it back to the older browser version, so I turned it off in Control Panel and installed Firefox. Try complaining to Microsoft… There seems to be no mechanism for feedback, so if they don’t want input from a serious IT professional, then who needs them?

Mick Orton
IT Project Manager

The Internal Revenue Service has issued its annual “Dirty Dozen” ranking of tax scams, reminding taxpayers to use caution during tax season to protect themselves against a wide range of schemes ranging from identity theft to return preparer fraud.

The Dirty Dozen listing, compiled by the IRS each year, lists a variety of common scams taxpayers can encounter at any point during the year. But many of these schemes peak during filing season as people prepare their tax returns.

The following is the Dirty Dozen tax scams for 2012:

• Identity Theft 
• Phishing
• Return Preparer Fraud
• Hiding Income Offshore
• “Free Money” from the IRS & Tax Scams Involving Social Security
• False/Inflated Income and Expense
• False Form 1099 Refund Claims
• Frivolous Arguments
• Falsely Claiming Zero Wages
• Abuse of Charitable Organizations and Deductions
• Disguised Corporate Ownership
• Misuse of Trusts

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