BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 1

Ex-convicts active in mortgage fraud

During Florida's housing boom, state regulators allowed thousands of mortgage professionals with criminal r...

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 2

Thousands with criminal records work unlicensed as loan originators

Gary Kafka, former body builder with a long rap sheet and violent past, wrote millions of dollars in mortga...

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 3

State let crooked brokers keep working

State regulators caught mortgage professionals breaking the law but allowed them to stay in the business wi...

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 4

Home loan racket flourished in Florida

A mortgage executive has gone to prison for racketeering, but a former associate in Homestead still sells m...

Case files of brokers

Scott Almeida Application for mortgage broker license Criminal report affidavit ...

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 1

About the Herald investigation

The Miami Herald spent eight months examining the Office of Financial Regulation, the state agency responsi...

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 1

Identity theft is no bar to keeping a broker license

Almost three years after he was arrested for arranging a fraudulent loan, a mortgage broker still had his s...

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 1

For license renewals in Florida, no criminal background checks

The state relies on mortgage brokers to report new crimes they commit. The result: Hundreds retained their ...

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 1

A criminal past, a trail of new victims

A convicted cocaine trafficker with a mortgage broker license ultimately admitted that he fleeced 30 custom...

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 1

Who's watching the brokers

The Office of Financial Regulation was created by the Florida Legislature to oversee the state's banks and ...

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 2

States act to license loan originators

Thousands of people with criminal records work as loan originators in Florida. No license needed.

REAL ESTATE

Miami Beach real estate: Mark's Cleaners sells in Sunset Harbour

In another sign of the rapid change taking place in the Sunset Harbour neighborhood, Mark’s Cleaners ...

South Florida No. 2 on mortgage fraud risk list

South Florida's mortgage fraud risk index spiked 10 percent during the first part of the year, shooting the...

REAL ESTATE

Banner Supply agrees to $54 million Chinese drywall settlement

Banner Supply Co., the Miami-based firm that supplied the vast majority of Chinese drywall in Florida, has ...

REAL ESTATE

Foreclosure homes starting to lose their appeal, data shows

Sales of homes in some stage of foreclosure declined across South Florida during the first quarter, a resul...

courts

Mortage broker sentenced in fraud

A Homestead mortgage broker arrested after being profiled in a Miami Herald investigative series was senten...

REAL ESTATE

Homes sell for as little as $200

Scores of Palm Beach County homes were sold to investors at foreclosure auction this month for as little as...

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT

Property managers make money off condos' insurance

Your property management company may be making money off your condo association's insurance policy.

WEST PALM BEACH

'Deadbeat' fights back against foreclosure process

This deadbeat took on Wall Street, and Wall Street was cowed. Lisa Epstein, a 45-year-old cancer nurse, mo...

REAL ESTATE

Bank of America forecloses home without a mortgage

When Jason Grodensky bought his modest Fort Lauderdale home last December, he paid cash. But seven months l...

REAL ESTATE

GMAC suspends foreclosure evictions and sales of seized property

Foreclosure evictions and homeowner lockouts have been halted by Ally Financial Inc.'s GMAC Mortgage in 23 ...

Next economic crisis looms: Commercial real estate defaults

Two years after fissures in the residential housing market gave way to a national collapse of home prices a...