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March 18, 2010 07:11 PM UTC

Erin Toll, Director of Real Estate Division MIA

  • 22 Comments
  • by: allyncooper

(I don’t know what is going on here, but it is news – promoted by Danny the Red (hair))

POLS UPDATE: More on this story from The Denver Post this morning:

The situation has escalated to the point where executive branch officials from Gov. Bill Ritter down have clammed up and Harvey’s employer has hired a high-powered law firm.

Toll has been a lightning rod to some in the real estate industry since she was appointed to lead the Division of Real Estate in September 2006. She has launched a series of high-profile investigations into numerous mortgage brokers and appraisers, including participants in an alleged scam to take advantage of the state’s conservation easement program…

…Division employees have not been told why Toll is on leave, whether it was voluntary or how long she would be out. They were informed that Marcia Waters, the division’s director of investigations and compliance, has been named acting executive director.

—–

Erin Toll, the Director of the Division of Real Estate, is on a leave of absence effective as of yesterday, and nobody from the Governor’s office on down is commenting on it.

Photobucket

Toll’s investigation of fraud and misrepresentation in the mortgage brokerage business hasn’t made her popular in the industry, and several weeks ago it was revealed one target of investigation was Sen. Ted Harvey and his American Home Funding mortgage company for sending out deceptive advertising flyers that simulated official tax documents.

As reported here in a post by Pols on 3/3/10, Harvey has attempted to introduce legislation that would remove the Director’s authority to conduct investigations and take disciplinary action against mortgage brokers, and instead place it under a board system.

http://coloradopols.com/diary/…

That approach was nixed by Toll’s boss Barbara Kelley, DORA Director. Toll’s sudden “leave of absence” in the escalating dispute over regulation in a business that cries out for oversight is disheartening to say the least. I commented on the Pols post as follows:

When you have special interests trying to take away a regulators oversight, they’re doing their job (instead of being patsies for the industry being regulated).  

The disappearance of Erin Toll is a result of her doing her job just a little too well. Toll has not hestitated to use subpoena powers in the course of her investigations. Apparently two mortgage brokers sued her to deny a subpoena duces tecum of their bank records ( a court subsequently ruling the Division of Real Estate had the authority to do so).

It’s obvious why the real estate and mortgage broker industry wants Erin Toll to go away and strip her of her regulatory oversight. Toll’s sudden absence from her job and the silence in official circles is ominous indeed, and is an indictment on just how influencial the industry is.

Harvey’s outfit, American Home Funding, has hired the high powered law firm of of Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, and Schreck, a firm with a long reputation of serving the interests of the real estate industry, as it did in the savings and loans scandal of the 1980’s.

Archibald Cox may be dead, but here in Colorado we have Erin Toll to take his place.  

Comments

22 thoughts on “Erin Toll, Director of Real Estate Division MIA

  1. Brownstein and company also raise a lot of money for politicians of both parties. This railroading of someone doing the job she was hired to do stinks in so many ways.

  2. Ms. Toll launched an investigation into abuses of  conservation easement tax credits and a Grand Jury was convened.  Whatever happened with that investigation?

    1. It’s a shame that you registered your account six months ago, because otherwise it would be a cinch that you are either John  Rebchook (thinking that by using the sceenname “greengrrl” no one could possibly penetrate your clever virtual cross-dressing disguise), or a friend of John Rebchook schilling for him. Rightly or wrongly, your choice of words drip with partiality and disingenuity. Not that those are the worst of sins, if that’s the case.

  3. The same culture that has brought us the housing collapse and the Great Recession.

    For those of you who don’t know much about Erin Toll and what she’s about, here’s the short version.

    In 2005 Toll, when working for the Division of Insurance, exposed a title insurance scam involving title companies paying kickbacks to homebuilders, lenders, and real estate agents, which is illegal. Some of the local builders involved in the kickback schemes were MDC Holdings (Richmond Homes), Shea Homes, Engle Homes, KB Homes, Beazer Homes, John Laing Homes, Ryland Homes, and others.

    For those who unaware of what the title insurance racket is, its mostly a huge consumer rip off the real estate business uses to further line their pockets. Claims payouts are pennies on the dollar of premiums. Toll exposed the “steering” of customers to certain title insurance companies for payment of kickbacks to builders and real estate brokers.

    Homebuilders, lenders, and real estate brokers violated the law when they formed their own reinsurance companies then referred all their title insurance business to a specific title company that agreed to send it back to them for reinsurance.

    As a result of Toll’s investigations, First American Title Insurance Co entered into a settlement agreement to refund $24 million to consumers.

    But of course nobody went to jail, and there wasn’t a big stink about it in the major papers (DP and RMN), because of all the ad revenue they rake in from the above named homebuilders.

    Toll’s whistleblowing in Colorado  reverberated across the country, with other state insurance departments investigating, and finding, the same self dealing and culture of corruption. And for this, Toll paid the price with LandAmerica, one of the biggest title companies actually embarking on a well orchestrated campaign to smear Toll and even threaten her husband. One of the dirty little secrets of the title insurance business is that just five huge companies control 92% of the market.

    Toll also exposed the scams that were going on in the state conservation easement program, the primary focus of which were hugely inflated proposals. Toll was not afraid to use subpoenas (over 30 were issued by her office) in investigating this scam. In one instance, a single 640 acre parcel out on the eastern plains was inflated in value by $14 million in a matter of days.

    Toll narrowed down the perpetrators abusing the program to about eight appraisers and a few attorneys who were raking it in. As a result, conservation easement reforms have been put into effect.

    As for why Erin Toll is now absent from her job, well you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

    1. Do a crappy job and no one says anything. But do a good job and they silence you.

      Is this really the case here? Or is it possible she pushed too far and did a couple of things that she can be called out for?

      1. David, you know better than that. Every employee who isn’t just twiddling thumbs has always done something they can be “called out for” if they piss someone off enough, however trivial or meaningless. Let’s not start blaming the victim already.

        1. First, RedGreen is right and I was wrong on a very important issue. Thank you RG.

          To agree, yes anyone who who is trying to do their best will make mistakes. No way around it. And those that make no mistakes are being too careful.

          So let me ask more directly, why is the Ritter administration silencing one of their few effective managers?

  4. …it’s morning here, at least:

    Embattled real estate regulator Toll hires an attorney

    On leave from her job heading the state’s Division of Real Estate, Erin Toll has hired an attorney who specializes in employment rights of public workers.

    Evergreen attorney Bill Finger said Thursday that Toll hired him to help her “solve the problems, whatever they are.”

    Finger declined to say whether Toll’s leave is forced or voluntary but said she is protected from being fired under the state constitution.

    “She can only be fired for cause,” Finger said. “She has a right to continue on as a state employee during good or adequate performance. She can only be taken away for bona fide, good-cause reasons.”

    Neither Toll nor state officials have been willing to discuss her sudden leave, which division employees were notified of Tuesday afternoon.

    Toll’s absence comes in the wake of increasing tensions between Toll’s office and state Sen. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, whose employer, American Home Funding, is under investigation by the division.

    http://www.denverpost.com/ci_1

    1. Nice to see you’re staying appraised of the shenanigans here in Colorado.

      Yes folks, shenanigans indeed. Erin Toll (a good Irish name) disappears as our Director of Real Estate on St. Paddy’s Day.

      But then this is Colorado, more like Chinatown than Camelot.  

      1. pretty sick.  I guess the people of Colorado are better served if we don’t interfere in Ted Harvey’s god given constitutional right to send out false and deceptive crap mail.

        What a bunch of fucking shitbags.

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