The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Inspector General audited Mountain States Mortgage Center to determine whether it underwrote insured loans in compliance with HUD requirements and whether its quality control plan met HUD requirements. Mountain States underwrote 41 loans that did not comply with FHA requirements. Of the 41 FHA-insured loans reviewed, one of the loans had a significant...

The U. S. Department of Housing and Urban - Office of Inspector General audited the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) Title II single-family lender renewal process. Our objective was to determine whether FHA’s Lender Approval and Recertification Division’s (Division) controls were adequate for determining whether lenders met FHA annual renewal requirements. The Division had taken significant steps to strengthen its controls...

We audited Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans underwritten by Prospect Mortgage, LLC (Prospect), within Region IV of the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Office of Inspector General (OIG). Our objective was to determine whether Prospect complied with HUD’s requirements for (1) origination and underwriting relative to cash assets, income, and creditworthiness; (2) quality controls; and (3) branch...

HUD OIG performed an audit of Crossfire Financial Network, Inc., d/b/a CFN Mortgage Capital (Crossfire), a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) approved direct endorsement lender located in Miami, Florida. The review was performed based on the lender’s volume of loans underwritten and its default rate. The purpose of the audit was to determine whether the lender followed the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD)...

HUD OIG performed an audit of Crossfire Financial Network, Inc., d/b/a CFN Mortgage Capital (Crossfire), a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) approved direct endorsement lender located in Miami, Florida. The review was performed based on the lender’s volume of loans underwritten and its default rate. The purpose of the audit was to determine whether the lender followed the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD)...

We reviewed the books and records of Saint Timothy’s Tower (project), a 114-unit U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-insured (Section 236) Section 8 multifamily project consisting of 1 high-rise elevator building located in Compton, CA. We initiated the review in response to a request from the Departmental Enforcement Center due to its concerns about the owner’s use of project funds. Our objective was to determine...

We performed a limited review of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage (Wells Fargo) as a result of our internal audit of the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). During the audit, we visited Wells Fargo and reviewed a limited number of loans to determine whether the National Servicing Center implemented and operated FHA-HAMP in accordance with rules and regulations. Our objective for this limited...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Office of Inspector General audited HUD's multifamily housing subsidy payment review process based upon a HUD employee’s complaint. The complaint alleged that HUD lacked controls over its multifamily housing subsidy payment review process and voucher specialists were understaffed and underpaid. Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD had adequate controls over its...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General, reviewed Blue Mountain Hospital (Hospital) based on a request from the Office of Healthcare Programs. The objective of our review was to determine whether the Hospital had adequate written procedures for collecting, dispersing, and accounting for project funds. The Hospital did not have adequate written procedures for collecting, disbursing, and...

We audited the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Section 232 program as part of the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) goal of contributing to the improvement of HUD’s execution and accountability of fiscal responsibilities. Our objective was to determine whether HUD had implemented adequate controls to properly monitor Section 232-insured mortgages. We found that HUD’s Office of Healthcare Programs had taken...

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) preclosing and postclosing loan review of new Federal Housing Administration (FHA) direct endorsement lenders to determine whether HUD followed its guidance when (1) reviewing the initial loans underwritten by new FHA direct endorsement lenders and (2) performing the postendorsement technical review of all of the initial loans endorsed by newly approved direct...

We audited the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) National Servicing Center’s (NSC) Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) as a part of our annual audit plan. Our objective was to determine whether the NSC implemented and operated FHA-HAMP in accordance with rules and regulations. Overall, the NSC implemented and operated FHA-HAMP in accordance with the necessary...

We performed a limited review of Midland Mortgage Company (Midland) as a result of our internal audit of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) – Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). Our objective was to determine whether Midland followed U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rules and regulations when processing defaulted loans for the FHA-HAMP loss mitigation option. Overall, Midland complied with FHA-...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) audited PNC Mortgage (PNC), a Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-approved nonsupervised lender and servicer. We selected PNC for audit based on a citizen’s complaint regarding National City Mortgage Corporation (National City). PNC acquired National City in December 2008. Therefore, the report will be addressed to the current entity. Our objective was to determine whether...

We audited Westbeth Artists Houses (auditee) in response to a complaint submitted to the Office of Inspector General (OIG) hotline alleging that project funds were used to pay an executive director in violation of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulations. Our audit objectives were to assess the merits of the complaint and determine whether project operations generally complied with HUD regulations pertaining...

We audited Semper Home Loans, Inc. (Semper), a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) lender approved to underwrite and close mortgage loans without prior FHA review or approval. We selected Semper because its early payment default rate was higher than the default rate in the local area in which it does business. Our audit objectives were to determine (1) whether Semper acted in a prudent manner and complied with U.S. Department of...

We audited the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA), a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-approved organization providing housing counseling services to qualified home buyers or homeowners with unaffordable mortgage payments. The audit was initiated at the direction of HUD's Inspector General. Our audit objective was to determine whether NACA properly administered its HUD grants used for housing...

We reviewed Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loan settlement documents from two branches of DHI Mortgage Company, LTD (DHI Mortgage), in Arizona. During a previous audit of loan origination by the same branches (audit report number 2009-LA-1018), there was information indicating that the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (Act) might have been violated; however, we were unable to report on the issue at the time. Our...

We performed an audit of WR Starkey Mortgage, LLP (WR Starkey), located in Plano, TX, a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) direct endorsement lender. We selected WR Starkey for audit because of its high default rate of nearly 4.5 percent as compared to the average default rate for all FHA loans in Fort Worth, TX, of 4.1 percent. Our objective was to determine whether WR Starkey complied with U. S. Department of Housing and Urban...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Office of Inspector General audited the Section 8 Performance Based Contract Administration (PBCA) program of the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation (Corporation). We wanted to determine whether the Corporation fulfilled its contractual responsibilities as a performance-based contract administrator (contract administrator) of project-based Section 8 housing assistance...