On Friday, Imogene Hall fought against tears as she boxed up her belongings and shut the door at her Miami Gardens home for the last time, closing the chapter on a five-year homeownership nightmare.
Halls account of her housing experience involves a harrowing combination of mortgage fraud, foreclosure rescue scams, title fraud, predatory lending and unscrupulous foreclosure attorneys.
A Jamaican immigrant with a heavy accent and a shaky understanding of U.S. real estate law, Hall claims she was an easy target for the scammers that have become so prevalent in South Floridas housing market.
South Florida leads the nation in housing-related fraud, and Halls case provides a look into how several different mortgage schemes work.
Since her story was first chronicled in The Miami Herald in November 2010, Hall has been trying to save her home from bank repossession. She lost that battle in October, when a judge gave her 30 days to vacate her home of 14 years. She recently leased a smaller home in Hollywood where she and her four children will pay $1,300 a month to a landlord.
Ive lived here since 1997. I lose so much sleep, she said as she packed her belongings. I feel so bad. Everyone keeps telling me I shouldnt cry, but I dont know what else to do.
Halls ordeal began in 2006, when she lost her job as a home health nursing aide and looked to tap into the equity in her home to help pay the bills while she looked for work.
Her plan was to take out a home equity loan for about $50,000 on the three-bedroom home, which had nearly doubled in value since she purchased it for $80,000 in 1997.
As her bills began to pile up, a well-dressed man showed up on her doorstep unannounced, pitching just what she thought she needed: a no-stress cash-out refinance.
What Hall didnt know was that the man, Johnson Cuffy, was a convicted felon who investigators say was running an elaborate mortgage fraud scheme. Through his Tamarac-based company BlueKap Financial, Cuffy allegedly duped Hall into signing over the property to a straw buyer who later took out an outsized mortgage on the property, according to court documents and Halls account.
Unlicensed title agents helped Cuffy and his associates siphon off more than $180,000 from the mortgage loan, leaving Hall with $50,000 and what she thought was a simple second mortgage. In reality, she had sold the home to a straw buyer, wiping out her equity.
Subprime lender Argent Mortgage approved a $230,000 mortgage loan to the straw buyer, even though he listed employment at a non-existent video store in New York, and a county property appraiser valued the home at only about $140,000.
The more we learn about this the more incredibly amazing it is that mortgage servicers and banks allowed this to happen, state mortgage fraud investigator R. Scott Palmer told The Miami Herald when briefed about Halls case last year.
Hall began making monthly mortgage payments of $1,500 to Cuffys BlueKap Financial firm. The money about $12,000 never made it to the lender, and the home went into default.
Halls house fell into foreclosure in 2006, sparking a five-year court battle that involved allegations of mortgage fraud and predatory lending. The case began to shift against Hall last year when it was transferred to Miami-Dades Section 50 court, a so-called rocket docket created to quickly dispose of old foreclosure cases. In a matter of weeks, the bank foreclosure was approved.
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