Julie Sorrels, Escrow Officer with Ticor's Henderson, Nevada office, received a $600,000 loan transaction from a local mortgage broker that was to be secured by seven different free and clear properties in the Las Vegas area.

The mortgage broker was packaging the deal for a hard money lender to make the loan, meaning he was doing all the "leg work" to qualify the borrower and the properties to be used as collateral for the loan, before presenting the loan details to the hard money lender.

Julie ordered title reports for each of the seven properties. She contacted the borrower on the loan to inquire about homeowner's associations, insurance and to find out the borrower's mailing and email addresses. The borrower spoke broken English, but explained she lived in an apartment in San Gabriel, California.

Julie thought it was odd somebody would own seven properties and live in an apartment out–of–state. She pulled the tax records which indicated all the tax bills were being sent to the property owner at an address in San Francisco.

Julie sent out a Statement of Information for the borrower to complete and simultaneously asked the loan officer for a copy of the loan application. Julie was starting to see too many red flag warnings and escalated the transaction to her escrow administrator, Rozanne Smith.

Rozanne recognized the mortgage broker's name doing the "leg work" as the beneficiary on three previous loans, all of which had resulted in claims against the Company.

Rozanne decided to investigate these seven properties more thoroughly by reviewing the recorded documents and declarations of value. She also contacted her underwriter and fraud review counsel for their opinions, since they were already entrenched in the three previous claims brought in by the mortgage broker.

In the meantime, the property owner produced a completed Statement of Information and the loan officer produced the loan application with a copy of the applicant's driver license, which were turned over to Rozanne.

Rozanne performed an Internet search on the address the borrower claimed was her home address and discovered a one–hour photo shop in a San Gabriel strip mall with a mailbox rental, not an apartment complex as the owner had stated.

Rozanne also discovered the name of the property owner's husband shown on the Statement of Information did not match the name on the two previously recorded deeds where the spouse had deeded to his wife. She then noticed the signatures on the Statement of Information and Loan Application did not match the borrower's signature on all other recorded documents at all.

Rozanne added up the market value of all seven properties and concluded the borrower would have leveraged all properties to the hilt (their maximum value) with a $600,000 mortgage.

Rozanne and Julie concluded this "borrower" was actually attempting to use someone else's property to gain over a half million dollars. They put the brakes on the loan and asked Fidelity's Fraud Review Counsel to track down the real property owner to make them aware of their properties being used as leverage to obtain a new mortgage. For her fraud detection Julie has been rewarded $1,500 along with a letter of recognition from the Company.