AUSTIN -- Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has put in place a key section of state legislation enacted last year aimed at cutting down on mortgage fraud.

Abbott announced yesterday he'd convened the Texas Residential Mortgage Fraud Task Force to improve collaboration between the state's regulators and law enforcers. The Task Force will include regulators from the banking, credit and real estate sectors.

Abbott's statement came the same day Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal announced he was suing six participants in what he called a "vast predatory lending scheme." The charges there reflect similar "mortgage fraud" cases in Texas and elsewhere this year.

The Lone Star state's Task Force emerged in January under House Bill 716, authored by Republican Rep. Burt Solomons of Carrollton, who chairs the House Committee on Financial Institutions, and Sen. Kip Averitt of Waco. Averitt said the Task Force aims to "better track and prosecute mortgage fraud and its perpetrators."

Solomons said in a statement Jan. 30 that HB716 aims "to protect consumers and legitimate lenders in the mortgage loan process from fraud."

HB716 also granted the attorney general concurrent jurisdiction with local DAs to prosecute criminal mortgage fraud cases effective Sept. 1. These include cases involving money laundering, loan document falsification, and mail or wire fraud.

As well as the attorney general, the Task Force will include the commissioners of consumer credit, banking, credit unions, insurance, and savings and mortgage lending. The Texas Real Estate Commission and Texas Appraiser Licensing and Certification Board will also be represented.

Blumenthal's Connecticut suit alleges the participants, including mortgage lenders and a property agent, of swindling "dozens" of low-income homebuyers in the New London area. He accuses the defendants of inflating the prices of property they owned and then persuading the buyers to take out mortgages they couldn't afford.

"This case is only the beginning of a challenging time in the real estate and lending industry," Blumenthal's announcement noted somewhat ominously.