Home detention for investor guilty of part in $8.7 million mortgage fraud

A woman has been sentenced to 12 months home detention for her part in a multi-million dollar mortgage fraud scheme.

Sian Grant pleaded guilty in August last year to four charges of obtaining by deception and one charge of attempting to obtain by deception.

Grant, along with her husband Joshua and another couple, Bryan Martin and Viki Cotter, didn’t have enough money to get loans in Auckland’s property market, so devised a scheme to get loan approval.

Using non-trading entity Momentum Transition Developments, they created fake employment agreements for Cotter and Grant.

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* Property investor gets home detention over multimillion-dollar home loan fraud

They moved money between a number of accounts, giving the impression they received regular salaries.

The group then submitted mortgage applications through a brokerage where Cotter was a broker, then later in person.

Between August 2015 and October 2016 they made 14 mortgage applications totalling $8.7 million in loans.

Grant held five loan applications in her name.

At her appearance in January, Cotter, who was sentenced to nine months of home detention, read a letter to the court saying she was no longer the same vulnerable person and was very sorry for what happened.

“If I could go back in time, I would never trust someone blindly, who lied, bullied and manipulated me.”

Judge Stephen Bonnar accepted Cotter was not the architect of the scheme, but said she had tried to transfer “most, if not all the blame” onto Martin.

Grant’s husband and Martin were found guilty in December following a trial for their part in the scheme.

Sentencing for the pair has been adjourned to 6 April 2023