Georgia regulators have pulled the licenses of two mortgage brokers as they continue to aggressively attack what has been rampant fraud throughout the state. The latest cases involve poor record keeping and outright fraud.
“We’re cracking down,” Rod Carnes, deputy commissioner with Georgia Department of Banking and Finance, told MortgageDaily.com.
The state, plagued with a rash of mortgage fraud for years, recently strengthened regulations and stepped up enforcement — pushing its ranking on the list of states with the most fraud down to No. 3 last year from the No. 1 spot, according to a recent analysis by the Mortgage Asset Research Institute.
“This drop may be due to the aggressive legislation and enforcement Georgia officials have recently put in place,” MARI said in the report.
“While we’re not happy to still be up to number three, we do think we’ve made a difference,” Carnes said.
Carnes announced his department pulled the licenses of the two brokers over accusations of breaking the state’s mortgage brokerage laws.
Atlantic Financial Mortgage of Atlanta lost its license after regulators said they obtained evidence that the company “purposefully withheld or destroyed information that was requested during an examination and failed to properly maintain a loan transaction journal,” Carnes said in a statement.
In the interview, Carnes said the mortgage loan transaction journal is a key record that “tells us what loans are going through a business.”
The journal includes information about loans and borrowers, including their personal information — such as Social Security numbers, the dates they applied for a loan and more.
“This falls under our rules for books and records,” Carnes said, noting improper maintenance is a revocable offense.
The phone at Atlantic Financial has been turned off and company representatives could not be reached to comment.
The state also revoked the license of Intown Financing in Atlanta and issued a “cease and desist” order against Sonia Booker-Daniels. Neither she nor the company could be reached to comment.
An investigation found “that evidence existed showing that Intown Financing Inc. and Ms. Booker-Daniels made misrepresentations in loan files submitted to mortgage lenders,” according to a statement from the state.
Carnes said he could not reveal specifics about the case.
