Article Courtesy of St. Petersburg
Times
By Susan Taylor Martin
Published May 16, 2009
Tampa real estate agent Lori Polin played a key role
in one of the state's "most dramatic" mortgage fraud schemes,
according to Florida's attorney general. Polin is still an agent — and
she's still engaged in questionable dealings, an angry tenant claims.
Jeff Cole, who rented Polin's Tampa condo, says she
collected over $14,000 in rent yet stopped making mortgage payments and
did not inform him that the bank was foreclosing — an increasingly
common problem for tenants in a tanking real estate market.
Polin, who still has a $50,000 homestead exemption,
also asked Cole and his mother not to tell the bank she was renting out
the condo for fear it would kill a sale, he said.
"She accepted rent for nine months while lying
to her mortgage company about her occupancy status," Cole said.
"She asked me and my mother to keep her little secret … to save her
own a---."
Polin, who works for ReMax Power Advantage in Tampa,
did not return phone calls seeking comment. Jeremy Anderson, head of the
office, would not comment.
Even as Florida's real estate boom fizzled in 2006,
Polin appeared to be one of the area's most successful agents. ReMax
International gave her its Chairman's Club Award for agents with gross
commissions of at least $500,000.
But in 2007, the Pinellas Realtor Organization and
many of Polin's fellow agents received an anonymous letter claiming that
at least part of her success was due to alleged mortgage fraud involving
nine houses in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties. Polin told the St.
Petersburg Times then that she had done nothing wrong and was the
victim of a "smear campaign" by jealous rivals.
This fall, however, Attorney General Bill McCollum
sued 10 companies and 15 individuals under Florida's Deceptive Trade
Practices Act for their alleged roles in a $37 million fraud scheme. The
suit said the co-defendants conspired with Polin and two other agents to
inflate sale prices so they could obtain bigger loans and pocket
"millions for their own personal use."
Polin, 49, was not named as a defendant because real
estate agents are exempt from the act and subject to other state laws. The
Department of Business and Professional Regulation would not say if she is
under investigation.
In 2005, Polin got a $257,520, low-interest loan to
buy a condo in Tampa's Westchase area for use as her primary residence.
She signed a "borrower's occupancy rider" saying that she
intended to live there and that the lender could demand full payment of
the loan if she didn't.
In August, Polin rented the condo to Cole, owner of
a firm that helps arrange loans for environmentally friendly projects.
Cole, 39, who moved to Tampa to be close to his
mother, said Polin agreed to reduce the rent by $75 a month if he prepaid
$10,800 for the first six months. He then went on a month-to-month lease
at $1,875 because Polin was trying to sell the condo, whose value had
plunged.
"I knew she was upside-down on the
property," Cole said, "but we didn't realize she was that far
gone" until a foreclosure notice arrived in February. He said the
notice was unusual in that it didn't list him and his wife as tenants.
"The reason my name is not on it," he
said, "is because the bank didn't know we were here."
Cole said Polin told him that the bank had agreed to
a short sale of $183,000 but that the deal would fall through if the
lender knew she wasn't living in the condo. She asked him and his mother
not to say anything to the bank.
"I said, 'I'm not going to be part of your
lie,' " Cole recalled. "I'm not interested in mortgage fraud
except to the extent that I want frauds to be punished. I'm sick and tired
of this mess and people and their greed."
Foreclosure papers filed Jan. 30 by National City
Bank show that Polin had not made a payment since September, about a month
after the Coles moved in. In a letter to the bank, Polin wrote that her
income had dropped 80 percent during the two years the condo had been on
the market.
"In any event," she added, "I have
three contracts on this property, and National City has approved it for a
short sale. The investor is sending their approval and it will be
sold/closed by March 31, 2009."
Instead, the closing is set for today. The buyer has
agreed to let the Coles continue to rent.
Even though she hasn't lived in the condo for
months, Polin still has a homestead exemption that reduces the 2009 taxes.
Failure to notify the property appraiser of a change in status is a
misdemeanor that can result in a $5,000 fine, a lien on the property and
back taxes plus penalty.
Polin's real estate Web site calls her a
"well-respected" agent and "multimillion-dollar
producer" with several listings in the bay area. She is also licensed
in New York, where she keeps a Manhattan apartment.
As her Web site prominently notes, Polin is
"Tampa Team leader" for Sentinels for Freedom, a California
foundation that gives veterans four-year grants for schooling, housing and
other assistance.
Though Polin has not raised much money, she put
together a group that helped bring a Marine to Tampa to attend college,
said Mike Conklin, the foundation's chairman. He said he asked Polin about
the allegations several months ago, and she told him she was not under
investigation "and that it was someone else's major issue." She
didn't mention the attorney general's suit, but told him she had
considered changing her name, Conklin said.
In New York, Polin now goes by the name "Lori
Weber," another of her Web sites shows.
Told about a renter's claim that Polin had asked him
to lie to a bank, Conklin said he would ask her to "stand down"
as team leader. "We don't want to harm our reputation," he said.
"I hope everybody's wrong, but I also know that things happen and you
can't see everything out there."
|