Disabled Atlanta Tenant Victim Of Equity Skimming Scam
(revised 7-26-07; 7-31-07; 6-14-07)
A disabled Atlanta, Georgia woman, who dutifully paid her rent on time every month, has received notice that she is about to be evicted from her home because she was unwittingly paying her rent to a landlord who was pocketing the money without paying the mortgage, ultimately resulting in the home being sold in a foreclosure sale, according to a story in the Atlanta Progressive News. Reportedly, she doesn’t know where she’s going to go and is having trouble eating due to the stress of worrying about becoming homeless.
The woman, who receives a Federal rent subsidy under the FHA Section 8 program, notified the Atlanta Housing Authority, who administers the FHA program in locally, but has yet to hear back friom them. Since she was receiving a Federal rent subsidy that typically is paid by the local housing authority directly to the landlord, a portion of the monthly rent the landlord was skimming in this case was coming, albeit indirectly, from the Federal government.
(If the Atlanta Housing Authority can't do anything to help her, one suggestion would be to notify and file a complaint with the local U.S. Attorney's office in Atlanta for investigation of possible fraud that may have been committed by the landlord against the Federal Housing Authority for skimming the rent without applying it to the existing mortgage.)
I don't know if Georgia has a specific statute making equity skimming unlawful, but the Federal has an equity skimming statute that can be found at 12 USC 1709-2.
For more, see AHA Voucher Recipient Faces Eviction due to Foreclosure on Home.
For story updates, see:
A disabled Atlanta, Georgia woman, who dutifully paid her rent on time every month, has received notice that she is about to be evicted from her home because she was unwittingly paying her rent to a landlord who was pocketing the money without paying the mortgage, ultimately resulting in the home being sold in a foreclosure sale, according to a story in the Atlanta Progressive News. Reportedly, she doesn’t know where she’s going to go and is having trouble eating due to the stress of worrying about becoming homeless.
The woman, who receives a Federal rent subsidy under the FHA Section 8 program, notified the Atlanta Housing Authority, who administers the FHA program in locally, but has yet to hear back friom them. Since she was receiving a Federal rent subsidy that typically is paid by the local housing authority directly to the landlord, a portion of the monthly rent the landlord was skimming in this case was coming, albeit indirectly, from the Federal government.
(If the Atlanta Housing Authority can't do anything to help her, one suggestion would be to notify and file a complaint with the local U.S. Attorney's office in Atlanta for investigation of possible fraud that may have been committed by the landlord against the Federal Housing Authority for skimming the rent without applying it to the existing mortgage.)
I don't know if Georgia has a specific statute making equity skimming unlawful, but the Federal has an equity skimming statute that can be found at 12 USC 1709-2.
For more, see AHA Voucher Recipient Faces Eviction due to Foreclosure on Home.
For story updates, see:
- Foreclosure Epidemic Ensnares AHA Voucher Holders,
- AHA Neglects Disabled Foreclosure Victim as Friday Eviction Looms (8-13-07),
- AHA Helps Foreclosure Victim Move after APN Exclusive (8-18-07).
For a similar equity skimming scam (involving the pocketing of government subsidized rent payments while allowing the homes to fall into foreclosure) that resulted in criminal charges against the landlords, see Police: Charity Front For Mortgage Scam.
For posts on other equity skimming scams leaving tenants facing eviction, go here and go here, and go here. alpha
posted by Home Equity Theft Reporter at 12:10 AM
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