The tenants agreed to pay $126 million for the project, which had two mortgages totaling $93 million on record, and the city agreed to forgive $19 million in interest that the owner eventually would have had to repay.

Helpline was eventually accused of conspiring with real estate brokers and a lender to obtain inflated mortgages totaling $13.7 million on 65 buildings, according to a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in 2000.

The Mitchell-Lama project was built in 1968 and has mortgages totaling $3,775,000 held by New York City's Housing Development Corporation and the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Last year, about 3.6 million people refinanced mortgages totaling about $429 billion, and almost as many are expected to refinance this year, according to David Lereah, the chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, an industry group in Washington.

That is when Mr. Thompson learned that he owned five houses in Indiana, all in default, with mortgages totaling close to $1 million.

In all, the Federal Housing Administration, a unit of H.U.D., insures mortgages totaling about $300 billion.

The police said the lawyers had never paid off Ms. Drosos' mortgage or equity loan totaling more than $400,000.

He said PMI insures mortgages totaling more than $22 billion.

In all, the Federal Housing Administration insures mortgages totaling $275 billion.

In one recent securities sale by Merrill Lynch backed by a pool of 115 mortgages totaling $542 million, Eric evaluated and insured each property.