Attorney charged with HUD violations
By Staff Reports
Published in News on October 25, 2009 2:00 AM
A Goldsboro lawyer has been sanctioned by the North Carolina State Bar for misrepresenting loans involving the purchase of property in which he served as closing attorney.
William D. Orander III was involved in 56 such transactions between Jan. 1, 2004, and Dec. 31, 2006, the State Bar said in press release.
The real estate transactions involved the purchase of property by individuals financed by loans secured by the properties.
According to the Bar, Orander prepared and submitted false refinance HUD-1 settlement statements in conjunction with others who sought to disguise the purchase transactions as refinance transactions.
The institutions making the loans for the closings underwrote the loans as if they were refinance loans rather than purchase loans, according to the press release. In several instances, the amount loaned exceeded the purchase price of the house, and the borrowers received money from the closings.
Orander knew that the lenders would loan more money to the borrowers for a refinance loan than for a purchase loan at the time, Bar investigators said. He also prepared the false refinance HUD-1 settlement statements to enable the borrowers to borrow more money than otherwise would have been approved for a purchase loan.
It is a violation of federal law for a person to make a false statement to an institution the accounts of which are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Southern Bank and Trust Co. was the lender in most of the transactions listed by the State Bar.
The organization says the laws broken constitute grounds for discipline pursuant to North Carolina General Statute 84-28(b)(2) in that Orander violated the rules of professional conduct and committed criminal acts that "reflect adversely on his honesty, trustworthiness," and "engaged in conducted involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, and misrepresentation ...."
The Bar is seeking for Orander to be subjected to a disciplinary hearing by a commission of the Bar.
A telephone call to the State Bar made Friday to determine the possible consequences of a guilty finding was not returned, but the press release said that making a false statement to an institution insured by the FDIC is punishable by a fine of up to $1 million and as much as 30 years in prison.