Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Pennsylvania AG Files Civil Suit Against Man For Bilking Consumers In Unlicensed Real Estate / Mortgage Activity

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports:
  • Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett yesterday said he would ask federal prosecutors to open an investigation into a North Hills real estate broker and his associates, saying James C. Platts and his company, Easy Realty Solutions, flagrantly violated state and federal laws. "This guy's a con artist. He just keeps shifting schemes," said Mr. Corbett, whose office had previously won fines against a Platts-operated rent-to-own scam.

  • This time, investigators say he moved on to a wide-ranging home sales operation that falsified incomes to enable unqualified buyers to obtain mortgages, filed fraudulent liens against homes he was selling to extract money from the sellers, created fraudulent second mortgages and practiced law without a license. The liens, known as "lis pendens," were used to guarantee Mr. Platts a profit on sales because his real estate license had been revoked several years ago and he would not have been permitted to collect a sales commission.

The Pennsylvania AG filed a 54-page, 13-count complaint against Platts which noted that his deals frequently included duplicate and conflicting settlement papers, called HUD-1s. The suit asks the court to declare more than $1.2 million in second mortgages void; void an estimated 159 lis pendens that Platts recorded against various properties; and force Platts to refund defrauded parties in an estimated 115 home sale deals since 2004. The suit asserts that Platts engaged in the unlicensed practice of real estate and mortgage brokerage.

For more, see State going after real estate broker.

See also:

For earlier reports on Platts, see:

posted by Home Equity Theft Reporter at 7:20 AM