Written by: Bruce L. Weiner
Rosenberg Musso & Weiner, LLP; Brooklyn, N.Y.
In this article I will describe my personal experience with the fractional interest bankruptcy foreclosure scams, report on the task force that the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California formed in 1996 to investigate bankruptcy foreclosure scams, and talk about a recent indictment in Topeka, Kansas of a California man for allegedly perpetrating a bankruptcy foreclosure scam.
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Written by: Randall D. Wilson[1]
SMART Business Advisory and Consulting LLC; Chicago
When corporate insiders devise an elaborate scheme to mask the true financial condition of their company and only receive passive push-back from their professional advisors, the stage is set for a potential corporate meltdown.
Refco and its subsidiaries employed thousands and serviced hundreds of thousands of customer accounts. They were a group of commodities and futures trading companies skilled in the execution and clearing of exchange traded derivatives and providing brokerage services.
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Written by: Laura DiBiase
Kurtzman Carson Consultants LLC; El Segundo, Calif.
The housing market news has been grim. New home sales have dropped to a 13-year low, home prices have plunged, and the number of foreclosures has skyrocketed. Recent interest rate cuts haven’t done anything to help. While much of the blame can be attributed to the weakening economy, mortgage fraud has greatly contributed to decline.
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Fraud relating to the residential real estate meltdown is pervasive. Fraud clearly existed at the beginning of the home buying process through the conduct of some representatives of the mortgage community, but waiting to take advantage of the distressed homeowners who were defrauded getting into the home loans is often another set of schemers. The impact of fraud associated with the current real estate crisis is beginning to be felt in the context of bankruptcy cases and it will only increase over the foreseeable future. Many borrowers will be forced to file bankruptcy not only because of lost jobs and inflation but because they have been defrauded when they desperately tried to salvage their interests in their homes. “Stop foreclosure” fraud is sucking cash out of the limited pool of assets that would otherwise be available to pay creditors. The extent to which bankruptcy trustees will become involved in asserting claims against the persons who have taken advantage of homeowners is unclear especially considering that residences generally constitute exempt property under Section 522 of the Bankruptcy Code, but there can be no doubt that fraud will play a prominent role in forcing some homeowners into bankruptcy. While creative schemers will continue to develop new methods to attempt to defraud desperate homeowners, this article will discuss some of their current scams.
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Written by: Frank Hammond
Cable Huston; Portland, Ore.
Bad faith, including efforts to use bankruptcy to fraudulently thwart or prefer creditors, is grounds for relief from the automatic bankruptcy stay. The courts have extended this reasoning to include single asset and similar cases presenting “new debtor syndrome.” The question remains how far this doctrine extends.
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