March 18, 2010 07:11 PM UTC

Erin Toll, Director of Real Estate Division MIA

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• 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.

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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.

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.

https://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.