The Office of Hospital Facilities (OHF) provides mortgage insurance for acute care hospitals.  The insurance it provides reduces risk to lenders and lowers borrowing costs for hospitals.  As of May 2016, the unpaid principal balance for its 105 insured mortgages was approximately $7 billion. OHF collects and generates many records to support its mission.  These records include application materials, internal reports,...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited the University Village, LLC in Orem Utah based on previous violations identified by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that found ineligible withdrawals and substandard physical conditions at the property.  The objective of our audit was to determine whether University Village complied with its HUD multifamily...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG), assisted the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York and Northern District of California, in conducting an investigation of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.’s origination and underwriting of mortgage loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). Based in part on our review, the United...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG), OIG referred alleged violations to HUD’s Office of Program Enforcement for action under the Program Fraud Civil Remedies Act based on an audit of Shea Mortgage that found it did not follow HUD requirements when it underwrote loans that had executed and recorded agreements containing prohibited restrictive covenants.  HUD’s Office of...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG), reviewed preforeclosure sales under the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) program in the St. Louis, MO, area.  We found that the realtor for the preforeclosure sale entered into a consulting agreement with the purchaser of the property.  The agreement required that when the purchaser later sold the property, he would pay half of...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG), reviewed preforeclosure sales under the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) program in the St. Louis, MO, area.  We found that a realtor purchased a property in January 2010 using a limited liability company he controlled while also acting as the seller’s agent.   On October 23, 2015, HUD served a complaint on the realtor,...

At the request of the HUD Office of Multifamily Housing Programs, OIG assessed Multifamily’s efforts to determine the impact its affordable housing programs had on preserving affordable housing via tenant outreach and advocacy activities to revitalize communities. Existing performance measures did not provide useful program evaluation information and did not meet Multifamily’s needs. OIG recommended program design and evaluation...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited Solace LLC’s Section 8 housing assistance payments program because of the results of our previous audit of another multifamily property.  The person responsible for housing assistance program issues at the other property was also Solace’s manager.  Our objectives were to determine whether Solace correctly computed tenant annual...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited Reflection5 LLC’s Section 8 housing assistance payments program because of the results of a previous audit of another multifamily property.  The person responsible for housing assistance program issues at the other property was also involved with the housing assistance program at Reflection5.  Our objectives were to determine...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigated alleged violations of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) regulations by RANlife, Inc.  We reviewed the single-family FHA loan files processed by RANlife to determine whether it complied with HUD’s rules and regulations in originating, underwriting, and endorsing the loans for FHA insurance. On November, 23, 2015, RANlife...

Based on a request from the Assistant U.S. Attorney’s Office in Salt Lake City, UT, we provided information about single-family lenders with high default rates. We then reviewed the available case binders for 38 loans for which the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) had paid claims that were underwritten by City First Mortgage Services, LLC. We completed the review and referred alleged violations to the U.S. Department of Housing...

We performed a survey of Evergreen Moneysource Mortgage Company, doing business as Evergreen Home Loans, regarding its Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan origination process.  The review was part of our efforts to improve the integrity of single-family insurance programs.  We selected Evergreen’s Las Vegas branch because of its compare ratio.  Our audit objective was to determine whether Evergreen’s Las Vegas...

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) oversight of its Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program and found that contrary to program residency requirements, 37 borrowers did not live in the property associated with the loan and were renting the property to participants in HUD’s Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program.   Renting the properties to Section 8 program participants violated...

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) oversight of its Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program and found that 33 borrowers had more than 1 loan under the program.  Having multiple loans violated program requirements because HUD requires borrowers to reside in the mortgaged residence as their principal residence and borrowers may not have more than one principal residence at a time. ...

We reviewed the general and application controls over the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) Single Family Insurance System (SFIS) and Single Family Insurance Claims Subsystem (Claims) as part of the internal control assessments required for the fiscal year 2015 financial statement audit under the Chief Financial Officer’s Act of 1990. Our objective was to assess the general and application controls over SFIS and Claims for...

We reviewed Sun West Mortgage Company’s loan underwriting activities, including quality controls, based on a citizen complaint alleging that the mortgage company was deficient in underwriting its loans.  The complaint further alleged that the mortgage company used unauthorized staff in another country and shared user identification numbers to “pre-underwrite” Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans.  Our objective...

We audited the Dolores Frances Affordable Housing project, based on a citizen complaint and a suggestion from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Departmental Enforcement Center.  The complaint alleged nonpayment of HUD utility allowances and security deposits, mismanagement of the maintenance department, related parties hired in supervisory positions, and conflict-of-interest vendor contracts by the...

We audited the Dolores Frances Affordable Housing project, based on a citizen complaint and a suggestion from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Departmental Enforcement Center.  The complaint alleged nonpayment of HUD utility allowances and security deposits, mismanagement of the maintenance department, related parties hired in supervisory positions, and conflict-of-interest vendor contracts by the...

The U.S. Department of Housing Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited the HUD to determine whether it collected partial claims upon termination of their related Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured mortgages.  We initiated this audit because of our concern that FHA partial claims could go uncollected. HUD did not collect an estimated 1,361 partial claims that became due in fiscal year 2015.  As...

We audited the Georgia Housing and Finance Authority’s implementation of the Federal Housing Administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program (FHA-HAMP).  We selected the Authority because (1) our data analysis showed that the Authority had the highest ratio of FHA-HAMP actions to delinquent loans within the jurisdiction of our regional office, (2) the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) office located in...