Bill Pulte’s newest fraud claim against Lisa Cook is more outlandish and desperate than his original attack.
Pulte’s latest claim is based on Cook having rental income from 2021 second home mortgage in Cambridge. Pulte alleges that this means that Cook defrauded the lender by claiming the property as a second home, when it was actually intended as an investment property.
Once again, this is Pulte acting in bad faith to abuse his authority. There is no basis whatsoever on the current evidence for Pulte to be making a mortgage fraud referral to DOJ for Cook’s Cambridge mortgage.
There are two problems with this argument. First, the standard Fannie/Freddie second home rider—which Pulte notably does not quote—expressly permits short-term rental of a second home:
- Borrower must occupy and use the Property as Borrower’s second home. Borrower will maintain exclusive control over the occupancy of the Property, including short-term rentals, and will not subject the Property to any timesharing or other shared ownership arrangement or to any rental pool or agreement that requires Borrower either to rent the Property or give a management firm or any other person or entity any control over the occupancy or use of the Property. Borrower will keep the Property available primarily as a residence for Borrower’s personal use and enjoyment for at least one year after the date of this Security Instrument, unless Lender otherwise agrees in writing, which consent will not be unreasonably withheld, or unless extenuating circumstances exist that are beyond Borrower’s control.
All Pulte knows is that Cook declared between $15,000 and $50,000 of rental income from the property within the first eight months of the mortgage. Cook could easily have cleared $1,875/mo for eight months if she rented out the place on AirBnb for a few days each month.
Pulte does not know if Cook rented out the property for the entire year or just short term. If she occasionally rented out the property, she didn’t violate the covenant. That Pulte doesn’t quote the key “short-term rental” language is suggestive that he’s acting in bad faith.
Second—and this is something that non-lawyers often don’t understand—there is a really critical difference between a mere breach of contract and promissory fraud. The difference is about intent. If Cook broke her promise about property use (and that isn’t clear), all that shows is a breach of contract. For it to be fraud, she would have to have never intended to perform the promise in the first place. Pulte has no evidence whatsoever about Cook’s intent at the time she took out the mortgage. He hasn’t even shown a breach of contract, much less common law fraud, not to speak of a federal criminal law violation.
But here I am arguing legal technicalities when we all know this is pretextual and done in bad faith.
[Updated 8.29.25 at 2:45pm ET to address comment about 2021 vs. 2025 LLPAs by deleting LLPA/materiality discussion.]