MFI-Miami Blog

Is Flagstar Bank Playing Low-Income Borrowers For Chumps? You could find yourself trapped in the 100 Percent financing program by Flagstar Bank  Michigan based Flagstar Bank has the Internet abuzz about their plan to bring back zero-down mortgages.  There are plenty of details about this program that Zero Hedge and Housing Wire left out of their articles. Flagstar Bank is also throwing in money toward closing costs. The bank is gifting the 3% required down payment. They are also contributing up to $3,500 toward closing costs to qualified borrowers. Borrowers would not have to repay the down payment or closing costs. Flagstar Bank will be giving the borrower a 1099 form to report as income to the IRS.  The bank says they see a need in many communities to help people who lack the funds for a down payment. Flagstar is also targeting Millennials living in urban areas with student loan debt. Student loan debt payments hinder their ability to save for...

NYCHA Put Thousands Of Children At Risk For Lead Poisoning Because It Failed To Perform Lead Paint Inspections  NYCHA has failed to perform lead paint inspection for over a year and Mayor de Blasio knew about. Local law and federal regulation required the agency to perform inspections yearly. Mayor de Blasio knew NYCHA was in noncompliance on lead-paint inspections since April 2016. He even boasted about NYCHA’s “aggressive” program to find and remove lead paint. Yet, the Mayor withheld the information from the public and NYCHA’s 400,000 tenants. The NYC Department of Investigation revealed that Shola Olatoye had certified NYCHA was in compliance on lead checks when she knew it wasn’t. The DOI found that Olatoye had signed an October 2016 document certifying that the authority was in compliance with all lead-paint inspection requirements. Olatoye knew this was not true. The DOI discovered that NYCHA had not been doing the required annual inspections ...

Federally Funded CRA Housing Agencies No Longer Serve A Purpose Except To Help Banks Illegally Displace Homeowners Okay, I'm just going to come out at say it. CRA housing agencies set up under the Community Reinvestment Act are a joke. They need to be tossed onto the ash heap of history. They need to relegated to the same place where subsidies for cotton gin and buggy whip manufacturers now rest. No, it's not because of the claims that armchair conservatives like to spout on social media websites. Comments that CRAs were the cause of the financial crisis and other such nonsense. For the record, loans made by CRA housing agencies were not the cause.  Lending guidelines on CRA loans are much stricter than on most conventional lending programs or sub-prime loans. CRA loans also only made up less than 10% of the mortgages written during the housing boom. Read more at MFI-Miami

Wells Fargo Consumer Lending Chief  Franklin Codel Fired For Diarrhea Of The Mouth Wells Fargo has fired Franklin Codel as the head of Wells Fargo Consumer Lending for misconduct. Apparently, Franklin Codel came down with a bad case of diarrhea of the mouth. Codel took over the consumer lending division in 2015 when  Michael Heid retired . As head of consumer lending, Codel oversaw all of the bank’s lending to consumers. This included Wells Fargo’s mortgage lending operation. Codel was in charge of lending when Wells Fargo was forced to pay HUD a $1.2 Billion settlement last year. Codel led Wells Fargo’s mortgage production team from 2011 to 2015. This included all sales, compliance, underwriting, and support functions for both consumer and correspondent lending. Wells Fargo fired Codel for inappropriately communicating with a former employee. His termination is effective immediately. Wells Fargo said this to Housing Wire about Codel’s dismissal: The ...

Richard Moseley Extended More Than $220 Million In Predatory Lending Scheme To 620,000 Struggling Americans A federal court in Manhattan convicted Richard Moseley for operating a $220 million predatory lending scheme. Moseley was convicted on the charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft as well as RICO and TILA violations. Moseley was operating a payday lending enterprise that systematically evaded state usury laws. He was also charging illegally high-interestest rates. Moseley also was issuing payday loans to consumers who never even sought them.  He was before United State District Judge Edgardo Ramos convicted Moseley after a two and half week trial. Read more at MFI-Miami

Wells Fargo Executives Again Refuse To Release Documents To MFI-Miami Client Citing Negative Articles On MFI-Miami The finance world knows MFI-Miami's principal job is to do whatever it takes to keep people in their homes. It's not a big secret. Nor do I hide it. All the major lenders and servicing companies know it. They know I use this blog as one of my tools to motivate lenders. Most lenders and servicers just take it stride. However, someone forgot to send a memo to Wells Fargo executives.  They freak out. They try to use their catty behavior to punish MFI-Miami clients. Their cattiness is so bad it rivals the catty women from the 1980's soap opera Dynasty . I know because I hear about from their employees when I send document requests to them. Wells Fargo executives seem to forget I'm just calling them out for their morally bankrupt corporate decisions. After all, they were the ones who  created a foreclosure manual for foreclosure mill attorneys....

White Plains CPA Sentenced To 22 Months In Prison For $23 Million Tax Fraud Scheme White Plains CPA Joseph Cervone has been sentenced to 22 months in prison on tax fraud charges.  Cervone pleaded guilty on March 29, 2017, to one count of endeavoring to obstruct and impede the due administration of the internal revenue laws. He also pleaded guilty to one count of subscribing to false tax returns before U.S. District Judge Nelson S. Román. Judge Román who imposed today’s sentence. Cervone, a White Plains CPA obstructed and impeded the IRS by filing false tax returns from 2009 through 2012. Cervone claimed more than $23 million of energy and coal credits on behalf of his clients.  In addition, Cervone also filed false tax returns for the tax years 2010 and 2011 that failed to report income relating to personal expenses paid on behalf of Cervone from funds obtained as a result of his clients’ false tax return After prison, Cervone was also sentenced...