I’ve been working at a local title company in Texas for about 2 months now. Even though I just work front desk, I’ve learned a few things about the title industry like how to read a contract, process title requests, etc. I’m going to share how one title request I got from a lender almost led to a fraud accusation.
I was going about my business one morning and it was just a normal day. I get a call from a lender (from another state) asking what she needs to send for a title request. I tell her what info she needs to send to us and gave her my email address. Before she hangs up the phone she asks me “So, do y’all usually have attorneys involved in these transactions?” I paused for a second and replied “No…not unless there is a reason for them to be involved.” She just replied with “okay, thanks. I’ll send that request over soon.”
Fast forward a couple of hours later and I get a call from a Mortgage loan officer (MLO). It would have been normal but he had a very thick Indian accent, didn’t understand much English, and his microphone quality was not very good so I really only understood about half of what he said. Here is what I understood from this conversation: he wants to send a title request for a refinance of a home, the said borrowers already have 2 liens on the property and he has only been an MLO for 2 months and doesn’t really know what he is doing. The weirdest thing about this conversation though was that I didn’t know who the guy worked for and he already had my email address without me giving it to him.
So he sends me a test email to make sure he has the right email address. I get the email and notice the property address. I then realize he is connected with the lender I spoke to earlier. So I tell him the same thing I told the lender. We finally hang up the phone and I go about my usual business.
About 45 minutes until closing time I get the title request from the lender. I print out the request then go to pull the property information from the local County Appraisal District (CAD). As I am looking over the CAD info, I notice at the bottom of the report it shows that the said borrowers for the refi sold their house back in May. That’s a big red flag. I print off the CAD report and take it and the request back to one of the escrow assistants (EA) to explain the situation to her. After I tell her about the phone calls with lender and MLO and she looks at the CAD report, I could tell we were both thinking the same thing…mortgage fraud.
We decided to deal with it the next morning since it was already closing time but before I left that night I sent an email to the lender with the CAD attached telling her what I had found. I come into work the next morning and already have an email from MLO saying the borrowers are freaking out and have NOT sold their property. I print out the email and go talk to EA. We got another employee to help us do some digging on this property.
After 15 minutes of searching and researching, we discover that the person who supposedly bought the property actually bought another property a few blocks over, not the one in question. The CAD had noted a transaction on the property that never took place. Relieved, I go back to my desk with my evidence and email the lender and MLO to assure them that everything is fine and that it was a mistake by CAD so we can go ahead with the refi.
Point of the story, you might want to check your property information on the local CAD website so you don’t get accused of fraud.
Submitted November 13, 2021 at 09:24AM by Unlikely-Ad6309 https://ift.tt/3ot8G31
