New Jersey AG Tags Downstate Firm With Suit Alleging "Rent To Own" Rent Skimming Scam

In South Jersey, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on one of the three civil lawsuits recently filed and announced by the New Jersey Attorney General's office alleging various forms of mortgage and real estate fraud:

• The New Jersey Attorney General filed mortgage-fraud lawsuits yesterday in three counties against 36 defendants, including a South Jersey company accused of running a "rent-to-own" housing scam.

• In that lawsuit, filed in Camden County, the attorney general said Ultimate Real Estate Solutions in Williamstown set up a scheme to acquire 18 properties through fraudulent mortgage applications. Customers with bad credit were promised they could rent the properties - and eventually own them - while Ultimate paid the mortgages. Instead, the attorney general said, Ultimate collected the rent and allowed the properties to fall into foreclosure.

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• A phone listing for Ultimate Real Estate was disconnected yesterday. The company and its president, Halimah Prater, were both named in the lawsuit. The Camden County complaint said Prater sought "investors" with good credit who could buy houses for people with bad credit. At least 16 properties were bought in the names of two men, Herbert Coleman and Yusef Hason, according to the complaint. Prater told Coleman, who had recently moved from a homeless shelter to a group home, that the properties would be in his name for only 30 to 90 days and that he would make "a few thousand dollars" on each sale, the complaint said.

For more, see N.J. firms named in rent-to-own housing scam.

To view the NJ AG's lawsuit and read how alleged scams like this work, see Milgram v. Ultimate Real Estate Solutions, L.L.C. et al..

For more on problems with "Rent To Own" and Lease / Option real estate deals, go here and go here.

Editorial Note:

While this case has been brought in the form of a civil lawsuit by the state Attorney General's office, conduct is alleged that the complaint specifically refers to as criminal in nature. As such, it wouldn't be a surprise if the New Jersey Feds (U.S. Attorney's Office, FBI, IRS, et al.) are watching this matter and loading up for a case of their own involving criminal charges (ie. mail & wire fraud, conspiracy, racketeering, money laundering, tax evasion, etc.) against these defendants. rent to own lease purchase option scams yellowstone equity skimming unwittingly digamma