mortgage fraud Jamaica

A Jamaican man allegedly used a fictitious identity to secure $352 million in mortgage loans from four banks in a single month, in a scheme connected to a wider $600 million property title fraud ring that MOCA describes as the most brazen it has ever seen.

Inflated property valuations, colluding valuers, and fraudulent mortgage applications have cost Jamaican banks and buyers hundreds of millions of dollars. This report examines how valuation fraud enters the property transaction chain and what the Financial Services Commission and the Land Surveyors and Valuers Licensing Board are doing to address it.

Fraudulent mortgage discharges — where a mortgage registered against a property is falsely represented as repaid and removed from the title — have allowed bad actors to raise new financing against properties that were already encumbered. This report examines equity stripping schemes, the registration process for mortgage discharges, and what homeowners and lenders can do to detect and prevent this fraud.

Unregulated moneylenders in Jamaica have used property as collateral for short-term loans at exorbitant interest rates, seizing the homes of borrowers who default on repayments that were never designed to be met. This report examines the Moneylending Act, the regulatory gap that allows predatory lenders to operate, and what borrowers can do when faced with the loss of their property.