FSA bans three more brokers for mortgage fraud

The Financial Services Authority has banned three mortgage brokers, fining two of them £420,000, as part of its crack down on home loan fraud. 

John Charalambous of The Financial Associates in Kent, Richard Granville Greenland of Guardian Property and Mortgages also in Kent and Michael Adam Goldman of Goldman Group in Manchester have all been banned by the FSA, taking to 93 the number of mortgage brokers excluded by the regulator.  

The FSA found Charalambous had altered a mortgage application without the client's knowledge, increasing the size of the loan, and then pocketing the difference. Charalambous had also made false applications for life insurance policies in the name of clients in order to collect the commission. The FSA banned Charalambous and fined him £294,500 for committing serious mortgage fraud and posing a risk to consumers.  

Richard Granville Greenland was also banned and fined £120,000 for submitting mortgage applications which contained details he knew to be false, according to the FSA. The FSA also fined Kent-based Greenland for failing to maintain customer records.  

The FSA also banned Manchester-based Michael Adam Goldman for exaggerating his and client’s income in fraudulent mortgage applications made in 2007. Goldman would have been fined £102,000 if he had not been declared bankrupt in November 2009, according to the FSA. 

‘We take mortgage fraud very seriously, particularly when customers suffer or are financially at risk. All three individuals have demonstrated a serious lack of integrity and we regard it as even more serious when those in senior roles and who are trusted by the customers abuse their positions,’ said Margaret Cole (pictured), FSA director of enforcement and financial crime.