Anchorage Daily News

Federal law enforcement officials have subpoenaed the exhaustive database of homes listed for sale in Alaska.

The Alaska Multiple Listing Service Inc., a company owned by Alaska real estate brokers, told its members about the subpoena late last week and cautioned them to obey federal law.

The listing service runs a database and a Web site that supply an abundance of information about Alaska homes for sale to buyers and sellers. The database is the primary tool used by real estate brokers to list properties for sale in Alaska. Its records provide abundant data about Alaska home sales -- from a property's asking price to the number of days it sat on the market.

According to a recent alert sent by the Anchorage-based listing service to its members, the federal government is putting a "high priority" on investigating whether people within the real estate industry are violating a consumer protection law Congress enacted in 1974 to prevent undisclosed kickbacks and the flow of bad information to borrowers.

In an e-mail to the members last week, Mike Smith, chief executive officer of the listing service, said his office had been "contacted by a federal law enforcement agency and served a subpoena to produce and deliver the entire database for review."

Smith declined to comment for this story, saying anything related to a subpoena is an internal matter.

The Multiple Listing Service continues to keep up its public Web site -- used daily by prospective home buyers.

The FBI has previously announced that it was investigating lending practices in Alaska but did not return calls in time for this story.

In the e-mail, Smith encouraged the members of the Multiple Listing Service -- real estate agents, lenders, title agents, appraisers and others -- to ensure they are not violating the federal Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, known as RESPA.

"It is evident that this is a high priority for the federal government at this time. Don't be one of those who gets on the wrong side of the law," Smith wrote.

RESPA is a consumer protection law that requires lenders, Realtors and title agents to provide a good faith estimate of the cost of a loan and disclose all the loan fees and who is being paid the fees. The act also prohibits lenders from raising borrowers' fees at closing and prohibits a real estate agent from forcing a borrower to use a specific title insurance company as a condition of the sale. Violators can face steep fines or jail time.

Art Clark, the incoming president of the Alaska Board of Realtors, said he was aware of the MLS records subpoena but does not know any specifics on what the federal officials are investigating.

"My understanding is this has to do with potential RESPA violations," Clark said.

"I'm certainly not freaking out about it. I'm sure some people are freaking out about it," Clark said.

Assistant U.S. attorney Crandon Randell, who is prosecuting a loan-fraud case involving nine Anchorage real estate workers and one mortgage company, said he was not involved in the subpoena.

In that fraud case, a grand jury indicted agents, lenders and other real estate workers on 64 counts, accusing the nine people of using fraudulent home loans to illegally gain $1.7 million. A federal court trial is set for October.

In recent years, investigators in other states have subpoenaed multiple listing service records to pursue possible violations of state and federal law.

For example, last year the state-run Colorado Division of Real Estate subpoenaed that state's multiple listing service, Metrolist Inc., to investigate 500 complaints about questionable home sales.

According to the Denver Post, Metrolist agreed to give the division full access to the records.

Find Elizabeth Bluemink online at adn.com/contact/ebluemink or call 257-4317.

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