As home values decrease in South Florida, the following story appears in The Miami Herald
A campaign is under way to provide badly needed money to people cheated by rogue mortgage brokers.
The Florida Association of Mortgage Brokers and AARP are pushing for the revival of a special fund that was quietly killed by regulators a decade ago, saying it could help thousands of people who have lost their homes and savings.
''We should never have gotten rid of it,'' said Ritch Workman, president of the FAMB. "We are going to fight to bring it back.''
Workman and AARP spokesman Dave Bruns said their groups will press to reinstate the Mortgage Brokerage Guaranty Fund, which paid up to $20,000 to individual victims before it was shut down in the 1990s.
Though recent federal legislation requires states to provide some protection, there's no requirement to create a victims fund.
The effort to resurrect the program comes as Florida leaders prepare for sweeping changes in state law that governs the mortgage industry, including tougher restrictions on people who apply for broker licenses and stiffer penalties for those who commit fraud and other crimes.
Just last week, a state Cabinet report blasted the state's oversight of the mortgage industry, saying Florida regulators allowed hundreds of people with criminal histories to peddle loans, failed to alert police agencies to rogue mortgage operations, and ignored citizen complaints.
With Florida steeped in the nation's highest level of mortgage fraud, several lawmakers overseeing the home loan industry said they'll support legislation that brings the kinds of protection now being pushed by the two statewide groups.
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