The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited HUD to determine whether it paid servicers’ claims for properties that did not foreclose or convey on time.  We initiated this audit due to concerns that HUD overpaid servicers’ claims for FHA insurance benefits. HUD paid claims for an estimated 239,000 properties that servicers did not foreclose upon or convey on time.  HUD paid an…

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 States alleged…

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 net…

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 solutions that…

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 referred…

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 program…

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 compliance with…

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 a result,…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) oversight of Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans in Flint, MI.  We conducted the audit based on recent news reports that identified high levels of lead contamination and because HUD had insured loans on properties in Flint that closed after the City of Flint began using the Flint River as its water source in April 2014, including 144 loans with unpaid…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) multifamily accelerated processing (MAP) program administered by its Office of Multifamily Production.  We initiated the audit under our annual audit plan.  Our objectives were to determine whether (1) HUD adequately reviewed and approved loans underwritten by MAP-approved lenders for Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insurance and (2) the 2016 MAP Guide was…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – Office of Inspector General audited HUD’s Federal Housing Administrations rules and requirements pertaining to nonprofits purchasing real estate-owned (REO) homes during the exclusive listing period.  We initiated this review based on information found during an audit of a nonprofit that purchased homes during the exclusive listing period in memorandum 2015-DE-1801.  Our objective…

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 evaluate the general and application controls over SFIS and Claims for…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) partial claim option because we noted issues in the postclaim review process during a previous partial claim audit.1 Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD had adequate controls over its postclaim reviews and adequate policies in place to ensure that servicers properly understood the…

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 the same time.  We…

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 the same time.  We…

We reviewed the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Multifamily Asset Management and Portfolio Oversight.  We initiated the audit under the HUD Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) annual audit plan.  Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD adequately monitored its management agents to ensure that front line costs and direct costs were not excessive across the portfolios as identified in audits…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) oversight of its Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program based on our strategic objective to protect the integrity of housing insurance and guarantee programs and because of residency issues identified in prior audits of the HECM program.  Our objective was to determine whether HUD’s Office of Single Family Housing had effective controls to ensure that HECM loan…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) oversight of its Section 203(k) Rehabilitation Loan Mortgage Insurance program as part of the activities in our fiscal year 2014 annual audit plan.  Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD had adequate oversight of its Section 203(k) program. HUD needs to improve its monitoring of lenders for compliance with the Section 203(k) program requirements because…

We reviewed the general and application controls over the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Loan Accounting System (LAS) as part of the internal control assessments required for the fiscal year 2014 financial statement audit under the Chief Financial Officer’s Act of 1990.  Our objective was to review the effectiveness of general and application controls over LAS for compliance with HUD information technology…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) procurement and administration of its multifamily mortgage loan and property management servicing and accounting contract.  We conducted this review based on concerns communicated to the HUD Office of Inspector General (OIG) by the Federal Housing Commissioner and HUD housing officials.  The objectives of the audit were to determine whether HUD officials (1)…