Copy article

Mortgage fraud

Journalist: Paloma Kubiak, YourMoney.com

ended 07. July 2023

Good morning,

Fleet Mortgages reveals it has seen “heightened mortgage fraud”, with more examples of false or staged income, altered or fabricated pay slips or fake bank statements, as well as people not disclosing adverse credit. 

Have you experienced this? Are more borrowers fabricating documents to get round affordability restraints? What's your experience with clients? Have you stopped many applications or probed further after things didn't stack up for your client? Have you heard from the big lenders on mortgage fraud increasing?

Also, what's the impact if a) a borrower does get away with it, eg will struggle financially, and b) if they're caught in terms of credit reports, applications in the future?

Thank you, Paloma

3 responses from the Newspage community

Copy all

Copy

Editor
Bob Singh
Founder at Chess Mortgages
There will always be chancers but as advisers it’s our job to spot the fake papers / iD etc

We are the first defence and lenders are the wicket keepers who have access to far more data

Scratching beneath the surface and applying common sense can reveal a lot of issues

KYC is so important



Copy

Gary Bush
Financial Adviser at MortgageShop.com
Mortgage Fraud isn't something we suffer from at www.MortgageShop.com, our joined-up bespoke IT systems quickly weed out any suspicious activity and the perpetrators walk away from us, hastily. When you link Open Banking, 4 Agency Credit Reports, and Electronic ID systems together with experienced financial advisers, altered or fabricated application documents are a thing of the 90's for us. This leaves us the time to deal with real and decent clients who want the best rates and faster than the competition.
Copy

Adam Smith
Founder at Alfa Mortgages
With a solid background in Financial Compliance, I possess the expertise to easily identify such matters. Red flags are consistently present, and fortunately, we benefit from a compliance-focused network that meticulously examines case documents before DIP and Application processes. This ensures that even if, by some rare occurrence, I overlook something, their diligent review would catch it.