Yet for the five candidates running to be the state’s next attorney general, the issue has not been on the radar.
The lack of attention to mortgage fraud is striking. Florida has led the nation in mortgage fraud every year since 2006. A Herald-Tribune investigation uncovered more than 50,000 potentially illegal cases at a cost of $10 billion. Homes and other properties bought and quickly resold, often by real estate insiders, fed the glut of bank failures, foreclosures and inflated property values that have combined to devastate Florida’s economy.
Current Attorney General Bill McCollum has faced harsh criticism for doing little to crack down on the illegal deals.
It was widely expected that those running for attorney general would make the issue a priority.
They have not. Four candidates for the state’s top legal office do not even mention mortgage fraud on their websites, instead focusing on immigration reform, responding to the BP oil spill and health care reform.