If you haven’t yet had a chance to read this article by John Gittelsohn in the Orange County Register about a real estate sale that was financed by Wells Fargo in January of this year, please do so now. And if you were, like most people, working on the assumption that lenders and other industry participants had at least cleaned up their acts in time for the 2008 mortgage vintage to be worth something, think again. Continue reading here.
Tanta makes some excellent points that mortgage fraud within the 2008 Vintage of Residential Mortgage Backed Securities will continue to be way too high.
Your thoughts?
In 2008 mortgage fraud will be much more the exception than the rule. With all the transactions done on a monthly basis there are bound to be bad deals like this one that happens now and again. In the last four or five years of of this crazy market I have heard and seen some pretty questionable stuff done and shame on everyone involved.
That loan should never have happened. In January of 2008 there were still stated asset loans where it did not matter to the bank where the money came from. Obviously if you cannot prove your assets then you do not have them. Now with the new loan guidelines that loan would not have happened. I am sure some heads rolled at the bank… but then again no underwriting guidelines were probably overlooked. Also the escrow officer probably did not know or care where the down was wired in from because it wasn’t on here funding sheet. The only people who knew for sure what was going on was the loan officer, the buyer, and the seller.
Pretty amazing. Stupid buyer. Greedy seller. Greedy & stupid LO. I agree with Michael that now it would be difficult to get that type of loan through the channels now.
Before reading Tanta’s article, I kept thinking, ‘Why didn’t the appraiser get a copy of the P&S before doing the appraisal?’ When sending in an appraisal request for a purchase, I always fax the P&S with it (as required by my appraiser). Good to know, I was not the only one thinking that, thank you Tanta.
My other concern is the Spanish speaking clients. Where are the laws to protect them? My wife is a notary and she refuses to notorize documents if there is not clear conversations between them as they may not realize what they are signing! Look at the borrowers, they did not realize the taxes and insurance was not included. A few at fault there, certainly the loan officer but also the escrow signer who should have been able to communicate that to them at closing. Great scenario for a bad deal.
I just hope they get to keep their home. It seems nice, clean and upkept.
Unbelievable how everyone involved just shut their eyes to what was happening. Every appraiser I’ve ever worked with REQUIRES the P&S before he will do the appraisal. I’m astonished at the fact that no one requested any documentation on where the “gift” funds came from. Escrow should be somewhat responsible for knowing this even if it’s not one of their funding conditions. Escrow also should provide a bilingual closer for clients that do not speak english and explain every little detail of the loan to them. It blows me away that some LO’s will initiate a loan like this and then just step back and let everyone else follow through with a loan that they knew was fraudulent to begin with. Everyone involved with a transaction today needs to be fully aware of their responsibility and involvement in it.
I agree in the beginning of 08 the lender still had the Fast and easy loan available (Counrtywide) for example, The verification of the down payment didn’t need to be verified as did the income. Our appraiser always get the P & S at time of odering the appraisal. I find it amazing for the LO would allow this to function. The outcome will be grim since I’m sure it wasn’t the 1st time something like this funneled through.
Like any bad situation, someone has to step in and break the chain of events. Certainly someone should have seen the folly of what was going on in this particular neighborhood in Orange County. As I have said in previous comments, I welcome the attempt to re-regulate the mortgage lending industry. If that is what it takes to reduce the level of fraud and increase the reliability of the system, then I’m all for it. Congress, bring it on.
Even large banks became so lax with guidelines, or lack of them, a correction was necessary and inevitable. (It is most alarming, however, that this happened so recently.) My concern still remains that
in the process, too many good and honest, appraisors, escrow companies,
real estate agents and mortgage professionals will not survive this
period. The new guidelines are in many ways too little too late.
Camille St. Sounds like a cartoon,except it was a serious financial event everyone just looking the other way with no controls or regulation and Wells Fargo lending 500,000. with out bothering to check what was the source of the gift amount.
I have heard about bilingual situations where the non English speaker cannot even read or understand the application, GFE. or any of the documentation designed to protect him. I feel that some sort of special effort be made by the LO. to ensure that every step of the process is understood in these situations.
As of today the guidelines are stiffer, but to late. The damage has been done. I can’t believe that no one noticed any of this. I tend to think they did, but turned their heads. All they cared about was the monies going into their pockets. All first time home buyers should be required to attend mortgage education classes. I believe too, that everyone involved in this process should be aware of their responsibilities.
Alright, a lot of hands in the cookie jar and a lot of people looking the other way on this one, but I have to ask…. What were the buyers thinking? Does no one do their own research anymore? Do we blindly spend hundreds of thousands of dollars without reading the fine print, checking out the area, talking to people who don’t have a hand in the deal etc? Have we as a society become so dependant upon others that we can no longer think for ourselves?
Everyone is at fault here. Where was the appraisal review? Who verified employment / income? Ignorance is NOT bliss, it’s ignorance.
Like the man said: Everything about this transaction smells. Ultimately, if Wells Fargo wants this type of loan on their books, it makes one feel sorry for their stockholders. I understand now a little better a televised report of Southern California homeowners
who just walked away from their homes, not bothering to take
furnature, personal items or ever precious family photographs
upon departure.
This is a wierd situation – It’s bizzare that this could happen with clearly the value comps being slective…and I know that in and of itself is not wrong. Like, how did it start? 1 leads to 2 leads to 3, etc.
And B of A has one of the better records out there but they cant see whats happening at ground level.
I feel that this would be harder to get done in todays environment. However, it shows what these fast and easy, no doc loans produced it was just too easy for a dishonest individual to manipulate the system.
The loan was not disclosed properly or honestly.
If the buyer and seller had an agreement, it should have all been in writing and disclosed if everyone had done their job properly. The Agents, Appraiser and Loan Officer all get a copy of the agreement.
It would have been the buyer and seller who were being mis-directed unethically by their agent and not disclosing. The domino affect was down hill with the GF and underwriting and then final loan papers.
It was all wrong!!!
No material object can be included in the the price of the home.
Buyers were set up and they probally didn’t even know it. More education or second opinion is always a great thing!
This is a loan that is a borrowers worst nightmare. It appears the buyers had no idea what was disclosed on the P & S. Its the real estate agents job as well as the LO to acknowledge they understand everything in the transaction. The escrow agent always wants to be covered since they norarize final documents for signatures. Again the no doc loans didn’t require any documentation so it never needed to be disclosed where down payment even came from. Those days are long gone for the better.
Wow. No way they are not all involved in ths scheme together. With that said I fault Wells Fargo the most in not having safe guards against this kind of flip schemes. It would be so simple to just look at what it sold for last time and so the current market condition just ask it it is reasonable. I guess this is where having good underwriters who look beyond the numbers can really be helpful. But none of this will happen unless you have a mandate from the top level of the Mortgage Banks to put in place systems for catching this kind of activity. You would think this is hurting their bottom line? Why don’t do more … I just don’t get it.
I think I agree with Tanta that due diligence was done knowingly on an elementary level. The comments from each of the parties just tells me everyone just wanted to do their one part as a cog in the machine instead of look at the overall picture like they should have. This loan was absolutely ridiculous.
The article bring out excellent information about this real estate sale finnanced by well fargo . This information exposes fraudulant
activity at it’s core .It is unbelievable as to how , with so many
watch dog agencies overseeing the real estate and motgage transactions,people are able to succeed in comitting fraud .The article also shows the extent in in dollors that were involve in this case .
It also show the effect these activities have on people that don’t master the english language . The article futher confirms that we need new laws and new watch dog agencies in order to help eridicate to some extent fraudulant activity
While reading this article, It makes me think that we are back to the bad apples. In this case, there are insiders!. I belive that the new national registration will encourage lenders and banker to look after themselfs (hope by creating new standards; policies and procedures) while getting their staff of financial servicing employees. I belive that “a violent fever is often what cures a deadly infection” Only then, after the fever of all these frauds, can the surviving professionals pick clean bones of the deadly market and flourish in a healthy envirionment.
What were the underwriters at Wells Fargo thinking? Or maybe they were not? Did the appraiser not comment on the previous sale price? Was the appraiser not required to make note of the sales on that same street at all as well as the sales price only a year earlier? Wells Fargo obviously did not look at the appraisal very well. It is a shame that Wells Fargo did not question the appraisal and more importantly the source of down payment. How could they miss such large details on a transaction? Did the loan officer mislead the Bank? There is likely more to this story that what is in the article.
If this was not a transaction that was assisted by a Real Estate Agent, the bank should have looked deeper into the transaction. Even if protecting the borrower is not on the list of ethical standards to adhere to, what about protecting the bank and the shareholders?
I only hope that these borrowers can afford to hang in there until their 10 year note is called and that they are able to re-write the mortgage with a gain in value by then. Wow, the seller was a real slick one here.
This are team of scamming and fraud again.
I find it revealing that of 22 comments, half either directly or indirectly blamed this on the lender’s underwriting. About a fourth said in essence, “everyone involved was at fault”. A very few singled out the escrow officer for not explaining things better. A couple said simply that “someone should have caught it”. None of them – and this is surprising on a website dedicated to the proposition that Loan Officers are fiduciaries – none of them blamed the LO! Well, that’s not quite correct. One did say that the LO should have done a better job of explaining the PITI. And another, concerned with the language barrier involved, suggested that there needed to be some sort of “special effort” on the part of the LO to make sure that all the steps in the process were well understood. Of all the players in this transaction, who represented the interests of the borrower? No one!
That was then in California, this is now in Washington. So it comes as a surprise that in light of what has happened in our state this past year, none commented on the roll fiduciary responsibility on the part of mortgage brokers and their LO’s would have had. Nor did any comment on what is now different.
Two indicated that we need or would benefit from tighter regulations. One said that the new national licensing system should help. None commented on the fact that SB 6381 took effect on June 12, 2008, fundamentally altering the relationship between LO’s and borrowers and the fact that the exercise of such responsibility would likely have prevented this situation and situations like it.
One essentially blamed the borrower for not reading the fine print more closely. Clearly, borrowers are, in general, poorly equipped to be able to protect themselves – they find the language and the accounting involved in these transactions to be quite inscrutable. That is why the passage of SB 6381 is so important. When the transaction described in this article was completed, no one was responsible to the interests of the borrower – except the borrower. That is now different.
One commenter correctly observed that only the buyer, seller, and loan officer really understood what was going on.
Think about it for a moment.
The lender serves its own interests. The lender approves loans according to its own risk analysis and investment criteria. The lender may make good choices or bad choices, but its choices have nothing to do with what is in the best interest of the borrower. Whether Wells Fargo did a poor job of underwriting this loan or not, they were under no obligation to serve the interests of the borrower. One might hope that the lender would step in to prevent a situation that does not well serve the interests of the borrower, but there is no legal responsibility for them to do so.
The escrow company serves all parties in making sure that the documents are properly signed and notarized and that the funds are properly received, dispersed, and accounted for. Whether the escrow company was reckless or not, they were under no obligation to serve the interests of the borrower except to the extent that they honestly and accurately account for all details of the financial transaction. One might hope that the escrow company would step in to alert the borrower that something stinks in this transaction, but the escrow company is under no legal obligation to do so.
Whether the appraisal was objective and professional, or biased and fraudulent, the appraiser was under no obligation to serve the interests of the borrower. The appraiser serves the public by following specific practice standards in the assessment of the estimated market value of the property. The appraiser serves all by properly evaluating and reporting the estimation of the property value. The appraiser cannot be concerned with whether that value estimate supports the buyer, seller, or lender. His duty is to the general public.
In this transaction, the borrower was on his own. His only protection was the ream of paper provided that almost certainly disclosed everything in a proper and legally compliant manner. The borrower may have recourse if something in that ream of paperwork was amiss, but he had no one looking out for his interests in the course of the transaction. Tanta concludes, “The problem is that there are no comparable sales of any kind that are a reliable measure of market value if they all involved transactions in which nobody ever actually bothered to verify and analyze the terms of the sale”. I disagree. The problem is that there was NO ONE looking out for the interests of the borrower! The problem is that NO ONE, in the interest of the borrower, examined this deal to see if the borrower could afford it. NO ONE examined the transaction from the standpoint of the borrower’s best interests.
If this happened in the state of Washington today, what would be different? Many of the comments said that tightened underwriting standards and program guidelines in effect now would have prevented this. Maybe. As I see it, we have created (at least on paper) the best situation for preventing this kind of mess through the passage of SB 6381 this past year. In Washington today, unlike in California when this situation occurred, the mortgage broker would be the ONLY player in the transaction acting solely on behalf of the interests of the borrower. In Washington today, this borrower in choosing to work with a broker, has a knowledgeable ally working on his behalf in what is for most people a very complicated transaction. That is huge! A broker, acting as fiduciary, cannot simply be satisfied that the lender approved the deal, as was the broker in California situation. The broker, as fiduciary, would have reviewed the P&S agreement and highlighted any discrepancies in that document that were not in the client’s best interests. The broker, as fiduciary, would have examined the borrower’s ability to make payments on the loan proposed and subsequently approved. Regardless of whether the lender approved the loan, the broker, as fiduciary, has a duty to determine affordability. While a lender looks at debt to income ratios to protect their interests the broker must make a judgment as to whether the client can afford to live on what’s left after the payment is made and a judgment as to the impact of potential changes to the mortgage payment or to the borrower income. The broker, as fiduciary, may well come to a different conclusion than the lender with regard to affordability. A broker, as a fiduciary to the borrower, would have questioned source of down payment, even if the lender did not. The broker, as fiduciary, would have questioned the $30,000 concession and the concession to help the borrower make payments, even if the lender did not. Had the borrower been working with a mortgage broker who was bound to act in the best interest of the borrower, it is inconceivable that the borrower could have been surprised by the fact that the payment estimated did not include taxes and insurance. This deal may still happen even if the borrower is working with a broker who is a fiduciary, but the broker would have put in writing a strong recommendation against it. And this is important: we all know that the broker in this case probably earned more that $5,000 on the deal – but as a fiduciary, even with a fee of that size on the table, the broker must be willing to say this deal is not in borrower’s best interest and recommend that the borrower not do it. In other words, the interests of the borrower must come first, even if that means giving up the opportunity to earn a substantial fee for doing “what the borrower wants to do”.
Seller’s serve their own interest. They want to close a deal at the highest price possible. They have, as is clear in this example, an incentive to do things that are not necessarily honest and above board. They most certainly are not obligated to serve the interests of the borrower, though they are required by law to be honest in their dealings.
Buyers/borrowers serve their own interests. In most cases, borrowers are inexperienced and unknowledgeable in the details of the real estate transaction and, in particular, the loan origination process. As was observed, the seller, buyer, and LO are likely to be the only ones who fully understand what is going on. Too often, the buyer/borrower does not fully understand everything that he might need to understand to protect himself. This is why the new law is so vitally important. The loan officer by training, experience, and relationship to the transaction is in a position to have a pretty clear understanding of the whole transaction. The loan officer is arguably in the best position to serve and protect the interests of the borrower. When the transaction described in the article occurred, the broker had a choice as to whether to serve the interests of the borrower. Today, in Washington, the broker does not have such a choice. Today, in Washington, mortgage brokers are legally bound to do more that just originate loans and birddog the process through to closing. They have a duty to use their considerable knowledge and experience to do due diligence on behalf of the borrower and to evaluate the transaction from the perspective of the borrower’s best interests. The broker has a duty to advise the borrower of elements in the transaction that do not serve the borrower’s interests.
We don’t need more or better laws and regulations. What we need now is for mortgage brokers in Washington to recognize that they now have fiduciary duties to their borrowers. We need the mortgage broker industry to develop practice standards that, if lived up to, will serve to protect the interests of borrowers. No other changes to laws and regulations can come close. As long as industry players are looking to minimum disclosure standards borrower’s interests are inadequately protected and unserved. Only when brokers make it their business to look for and find better ways to serve the interests of borrowers will borrower’s interests truly be served. Then situations like those in the article will become all but non-existent, regardless of the recklessness of lender’s programs and underwriting.
Seems to me like so many other stories I have read and heard that all the partiess involved only had one thing on their mind = $$$$$. The broker, non english speaking buyers, escrow agent, and appraiser obviously knew full well that the were operating in the dark side and they all swallowed that pill and justified it with $$$$. The lender, wells had too liberal and underwriting process and didnt do their due dillagence. I know that at this time Wells is being rather forcefull with their latex gloves in underwriting as it has been like pulling teeth with no novicane to get their approval on even the best of files.
The parties involved in this transaction should have their liscenses permantly revoked and sent to prison, espacially if in their investigation they find a track record of this type of behavior. The wrongful parties standing around in a circle wearing t-shirts that say, “Im with stupid” all pointiong to the person next to them is not an acceptable excuse for such grevious behavior.
This story is very surprising to me. It makes me think of two articles I read today and two comments I previously made.
One is that I am all for underwriting performed by human beings. If that was the case here, I would have loved to hear the underwriter’s comment.
The second is a comment I made earlier on the difficulties of placing true values of homes in foreclosure heavy neighborhoods. I saw something on TV a few weeks ago down in Florida. The reporter was interviewing a lady who was the only homeowner left on her whole block of what used to be fully occupied identical town homes built in early 2006. Her complaint was that her daughter had nobody left to play with…If she were in a position where she needed to or wanted to re-fi, how would you find value on her property?
I think that in the coming months will be reading many articles like these. I’ts amazing how many people were involved doing this scheme. More amazing though is what you said in the article, there was not one thing that did not show a “red flag” but it seems that everybody chose to ignore them. There is not a valid excuse for them.
$304,500, just over half what the defaulted buyer had paid in 2006. In January of 2008, the house was flipped to a non-English-speaking couple for an apparent sales price of $625,000…..
This was a huge red flag that someone missed. No doc loan or not the appraiser should have commented on it and the underwriter should have caught it as well. I have no problem with someone buying a home at the auction as a foreclosure and fixing it up and selling it for a profit, but $320,500 profit should have raised some questions somewhere and this should have caused them to dig a little deeper before doing this loan.
Wells Fargo should have caught this one! With all of the automated systems in place it’s fairly easy to get a value range for a property. If a property was bought in foreclosure its more difficult, but should make the underwriter ask for additional information from the appraiser.
Oh hell, lets just change their name to ‘BANK OF AMIGO’. Every thing will be O.K……..Thats the trouble these days, no one has any sense of humor, think of the positive, the comps in the ‘Hood’ will be much easier now!! Amazing!! and these guys don’t need a bailout !! Just think how stupid the guys that need a bailout are.
Probably a good thing Wells started ordering their own appraisals. I have known investors that worked with foreclosure companies buying homes at auction. They were told the value was much higher. Many of these investors owned more than 10 properties and were put in option arms and 2 year adjustables. Since they were all stated non-owners they can’t refi and loans are starting to adjust and they are worth much less than they paid.
I recently hired three Wells Fargo originators. The stories they have shared are appauling. Once again, the big banks need to be held accountable just as much as the little guy.
Does this suprise anyone? I feel sorry for the home buyers. They didn’t know. Greedy seller pulling a fast one. Why would Wells Fargo finance this property at that value? Bad appraisal, bad comps. I’m puzzled by Ted Faravelli director of California Ass of Real Estate Appraisers comments, “APPRAISERS MIGHT NOT BE ACCURATE BUT THEY NEED TO BE CREDIBLE”. What? You wonder why banks are failing. Bad loans bad appraisals.
When prohibition was instilled everyone simply conformed right? Here’s the law, no alcohol folks…milk, it does a body good, right? Wrong, we do as my grandfather did in Nebraska and S. Dakota…bootleg…
Fraud and corruption are present in the good and prevalent in the bad. Until the penalty outweighs the crime…unless you hold yourself to a different standard.
This just goes to show you that even these large institutions are still not any more credible than they ever have been. I have heard some incredible stories about the downfall of Washington Mutual and Wachovia. Greed is in the offices of brokers, banks as wells as large corporations in every industry. I’m not sure what the answer is but it is unfortunate how so many people are suffering today from these mistakes or schemes…..whatever this was. I’m not convinced there were not inside players in this transaction as it seems to not make sense at all.
Hopefully with all the new laws and regs, we will all be a little more aware of mortgage fraud. Especially with the continuing ed classes we are required to take, we should all be that much more educated on spotting fraud. It sounds like Wells Fargo was way too trusting of everyone involved on that loan, and maybe many others. I’m wondering if anyone at Wells lost their jobs after that transaction. It seems like there were various stages of that loan that should have been scrutinized much closer. There will always be those who dare to risk the consequences of making lots of illegal money.
Wow! This is extremely ridiculous. I never knew a transaction could be as messed up as this one. How do you have so many violations in one transaction? Was this an incident of go big and go down how fast? How does someone sleep at night knowing that tomorrow could be a life of death or severe penalties. Things feel good when they are really ours after we truly earn it. I am fortunate to have came into this industry at the rock bottom to learn things the right way from the start.
Wow !!! After all that has happened in our industry it is amazing to me that anyone would even try something like this. The fact that all of the parties had a “it is not my responsibilty attitude” does not speak well for our industry. Everyone should look a the p & s, if all parties where to be held accountable people would think twice about passing the buck. It is pretty sad that people still do not seem to understand the seriousness of the sitution they are helping to create.
Its scary that something this messed up happened in 2008, actually…. scary that it ever happened at all. Seems like it comes down to the lender/underwriter…. the lender cannot rely so heavily on all the independent parties that it takes to complete a real estate transaction. The employees at Wells Fargo did not treat that 500K loan as if it were their money, if it were, I’m sure they would have asked a lot more questions.
Evdryone in this story just threw their hands up… sort of a “its not my job” mentality. There was a complete lack of responsibilty on anyone’s part, its still too easy to just point to the other guy. So, unfortunately, Tanta is right, mortgage fraud will still continue to be way too high in 2008 and beyond.
I agree with the comment above that the LO had a fiduciary duty to the borrower. We are supposed to guide the borrower through the process. They should feel as though they are being taken care of and not taken advantage of. I feel the borrower should do some research just to have an understanding of the transaction that they are involved. For most people it is the biggest transaction they will do in their lifetime and it should not be taken lightly. The borrower is paying for a service and it should be held to a higher standard. I find is hard to believe that with all the issues with the above transaction it was still completed.
Once again where is the accountabilty. Apparently no due diligence.
It’s no wonder the mortgage industry is in need of reform.
How many times are we going to read this type of story, it’s shameful to our industry. But what’s most unbelievable is that this just happened. Has Wells Fargo not learned anything? How many billions of dollars are they going to loose before the wake up? It just amazes me what a consumer will do for a TV…? Shameless on all fronts
Tripling of home prices in the first half of the decade without the wages to support that debt equals a time bomb. That time bomb has gone off. Systems should be in place at any bank to guard against this sort of a loan. The seller, appraiser, broker, escrow officer, banker, and buyer are all at fault in this transaction.
While it is sad that this took place just last year, I would like to think that there’s no way it might now. And as far as Wells Fargo goes, obviously they were asleep on this one. There were too many things overlooked. I agree with Robert, they were all at fault on this one.
I believe the real estate market is similar to the stock market. One day a share might be worth $300 and the next day, $180. The article doesn’t go into great detail on the renovations of the 920 Camille home. If the home owner spent over 150,000.00 renovating the home, then why wouldn’t it appraise for $600,000.00 dollars? If I understand appraisals correctly, comps are based off of “comparable housing” that are sold within 6 months of a .5 mile to 1 mile radius. Maybe all the homes on the same street are simply different in terms of square footage, # of bedrooms, lot size, etc. I think this article lacks detail for me to assess a judgement. Thhe home was probably in really bad shape (graffitti, etc.) and it was renovated well enough to reach the 600,000.00 value. Ultimately, the value of a home is determined on how much someone is willing to pay. I believe every home has a range of possible value, for i.e. on zillow.com, the website shows a bottom and max value on one property for that current time.
I agreed with Brad Allen but I also agree with Sharon that the article really did not provide enough information about the upgrades to the home to constitute if it was a fraudulant appraisal or not. Most in the article assumed it was a spanish buyer- the article said non english speaking, that could be anyone. However, I have seen that some agents will not provide the entire purchase and sale contract to the Loan Officer or to esrow. They have side deals with buyers and sellers and they are not disclosed. As one mentioned before, if Wells Fargo had a deal like Countrywide’s fast and easy they did not ask for where the funds were coming from. Good LO’s would still ask for documentation of assets and income and still run the numbers to see if they could qualify for the loan and the payments and explain PITI. I think it is the LO’s job to explain the terms of the loan he is giving his/her borrower not the escrow agents.
The Underwriter in the transaction may not have underwritten the appraisal, but we do not know if the appraiser did provide good comps because of the renovations done to the property. Also when a file is run through DU and is appraised by the lenders appraisal there will be a guarantee from the company (for instance) Landsafe appraisal that says they back the appraisal and does not need to be manually underwritten.
We do not understand fully the entire story. But if all parties where aware of what happened then they all were at fault
This one has me without comment, I cannot even understand how this made it to the closing table. With regards to the complete nature of buying a home most of know that our job is similar to being a conductor in an orchestra and that this means that we are coordinating a lot of events handled by different parties. IF you have a clear case like this one that puts large sums of money at risk for little more than completing a transaction, then it’s clear that things haven’t changed enough from not only an Ethical point of view, but a good business practices point of view.
Perfect example of greed. A controlled sales transactioin and the Buyers will loose for sure. WFB missed this one or did they perhaps somewhere a WFB employee might of been paid under the table (LO?) who know WFB messed up for sure,all it takes is one story like this and our integrity and title goes down the tubes.