This story from San Diego details how a famous Russian composer was apparently duped by swindlers and became a victim of mortgage fraud. Not surprisingly, a power of attorney (a favored tool of swindlers), combined with a good old fashioned confidence scam, led the composer and his wife into a circumstance where they went from owning a condo outright to a house with over a million dollar mortgage.
It is possible the composer's greed and desire for a huge house led him to lower his guard. More likely, he was simply too trusting and failed to carefully read the numerous documents the swindlers had him sign.
Consistent with my prior observations, the story notes:
Financial crimes against the elderly have in the past five years supplanted physical abuse in nursing homes as the most commonly thought of crime against seniors, said local elder abuse attorney Linda Robinson.
"All of a sudden -- in the last five, six years, predators figured this out that these elderly people have a lot of financial gain, and it just evolved," she said. "Not to say there still isn't a lot of nursing home abuse, that's sadly still continuing. But definitely the evolution has been to this financial sector."
Our firm has been evaluating an increasing number of cases involving allegations of mortgage fraud. Such fraud was apparently quite prevalent in North Texas, particularly in Collin County. North Texas bank and lender liability lawyers.
Thank you so much for making elder abuse a priority.
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Posted by: Dorothy Breininger | August 24, 2008 at 10:02 PM
The assets of Americans are also increasingly being targeted for Involuntary Redistribution of Assets (IRA) actions via probate venues and/or probate instruments such as wills, trusts and guardianships. These financial crimes can take place posthumously (with wills and trusts) or preemptively through guardianships that empty estates so would-be heirs have nothing left to inherit.
American property rights as well as rights of inheritance are being completely violated and with the aging Baby Boomer population, these actions are expected to significantly increase.
www.EstateofDenial.com follows IRA cases by providing news accounts, analysis and original commentary. Though Texas-based, we report on actions from across the country.
Posted by: Lou Ann Anderson | August 27, 2008 at 05:50 PM
A widowed parent, while of sound mind and body, demonstrates in words and writing how she wishes go naturally - "not with tubes and hoses", makes clear and definite arrangements for the distribution of her assets after her death and appoints a corrupt and greedy child as executor of the estate. After a serious heart attack, the executor keeps her dying parent alive, imprisoned in hospitals and a nursing home for months against her will and at great pain and expense until she learns where she has designated her assets, then days before her mother's death she diverts those assets to her own name via a codicil and bank instruments she has her sign. Only then is the parent allowed to "go naturally" (after the previous 10 days starvation). This is the practice in Texas.
Posted by: BetterTexas | January 06, 2009 at 09:34 PM
Good post.Mortgage fraud is a type of real estate fraud that most often hurts the financial institutions that lend money for purchasing property. The most common form of mortgage fraud involves fraudsters acquiring property and then artificially increasing the property’s value through a series of sales and resales between the fraudster and someone in cooperation with them..
Posted by: san diego real estate | April 20, 2009 at 05:52 AM
Michael - would you happen to have a list of TX's mortgage laws. I am working on a paper detailing the mortgage collapse- and the best I could find was this:
http://www.bankapedia.com/mortgage-encyclopedia/state-mortgage-laws/635-texas-mortgage-laws
and it has a few items missing
Posted by: David | September 19, 2009 at 03:21 PM