Real Estate Fraud Rising: Kentucky Man Steals Dead Neighbor's Condo

A 71-year-old resident of Fisherville, Ky., faces an eight-month jail sentence for mail fraud, which he committed while taking illegal control of a dead man's apartment, reports the Mortgage Fraud Blog.

Louisville lawyer Ronald Snyder, brother of the late Kentucky U.S. Rep. Gene Snyder, admitted that he rented out a condominium owned by a deceased man, Robert Cornett, for nearly 12 years, pocketing around $15,000 in rental payments during that time.

But Snyder isn't the only one getting nailed for a scam involving real estate. Earlier this month, a ring of mortgage brokers in Southern Florida was busted for a fraud scheme. A Maryland owner of modular-home construction business was indicted this week for mortgage fraud. And in the foreclosure-plagued state of Arizona, June was the highest month ever for mortgage fraud indictments.

In fact, The Wall Street Journal reports that mortage fraud is on the rise again nationwide. According to data prepared for the news daily by the research firm CoreLogic, mortgage fraud climbed 17 percent last year, after dropping 57 percent over the two previous years from an all-time high in 2006.