The state is trying in various ways to support families with children. One of the best help options is considered to be maternal capital, which is presented in a fairly large amount. Due to a decent amount of money, many decide on fraud with maternity capital.
Maternity capital is material support for families with two, three or more children. It is provided to all children and parents who have Russian citizenship. Those families who do not have other support from the state can receive such assistance. Each year, the amount of capital is indexed and constantly growing - maternal capital in 2017 reached 500 thousand rubles.
Who is eligible to receive maternity capital?
The following categories of people can count on help:
- Women are citizens of the Russian Federation who have given birth to 2 or more children.
- Men are citizens of the Russian Federation who have adopted two or more children.
- Father (citizenship does not matter) if the mother was deprived of maternal rights or died.
- Families with a minor child under 23 who is studying full-time at a higher education institution if he does not have the right to receive other forms of state support.
As the amount of aid grows, cases of fraud with maternal capital have become more frequent.
What is allowed to spend maternity capital?
This type of state support is considered targeted, and you can spend money only on such needs:
- Mortgage repayment.
- Improvement of housing conditions in the form of repair or purchase of real estate.
- Home construction.
- Accommodation of the child during training.
- Payment for education services.
- Fee for visiting kindergarten and other institutions.
This list is incomplete, it is so extensive that anyone who is not lazy is looking for any way to carry out fraud with maternity capital.
Popular Government Assistance Fraud Schemes
People are so original that they manage to take advantage of state support in various ways, but not in its main direction. The most common methods are:
- Cash withdrawal.
- Receiving funds by those to whom they are not intended.
- Mortgage.
- Scam officials.
But it is worth remembering that any misuse of maternity capital is punishable by law. Judicial practice in this direction is active and has already managed to accumulate a large number of cases in which individuals tried to use state aid for other purposes.
Cash withdrawal
It is prohibited by law to cash out maternal capital. All operations with it are carried out only by bank transfer. Supervises the issuance of these funds by the Bank of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation. When buying an apartment or building materials, the transaction is paid only by transfer to a bank account. But this procedure is lengthy, because it is necessary to collect a lot of documents, and the process itself takes a lot of time, so many mothers take risks and turn to scammers for help. The amount of their remuneration is 70% of the maternal capital of 2017.
You can cash out in two ways:
- Fictitiously buy real estate.
- To purchase housing at an intentionally inflated cost.
But the most common fraud can be considered a purchase of housing from relatives under a fictitious agreement. In this case, the document itself is executed in accordance with the law, but the previous owner remains to continue to live in an apartment or house.Fraud with maternity capital in this case is difficult to identify.
Also, there have been cases when they get maternity capital when buying dilapidated housing at an overpriced price. For example, an unsuitable building for living is bought, but documents suggest otherwise. Subsequently, the real value is taken from the market value, and the maternity capital is transferred to the parents. But this method is very dangerous and can even leave parents without state assistance.
Obtaining maternal capital by persons who do not have rights
In recent years, another type of fraud with maternity capital has become popular - it is received by persons who, by law, cannot apply for it. When implementing this method, you only need to fake a certificate of the birth of a child. After which it is presented to the registry office, where they receive a birth certificate, and after that they go to the Pension Fund, where they write out a certificate for state assistance.
Further assistance can be obtained legally or illegally. But in this case, the falsification of documents is very easy to disclose, and in the future you will have to answer for such a scam.
Mortgage Fraud
This type of fraud is today considered the most popular. Moreover, there are a lot of schemes to implement it:
- Draw up a fictitious contract with dummies to buy a home.
- Drawing up a contract with any of the bank employees who have the right to issue mortgage loans.
In the first case, housing is bought for real money, but under a fake contract. But the second way is more difficult to implement, since you need to find an employee who is ready to go for fraud.
What to do?
Not everyone knows where to go for fraud with maternity capital. If such a fact was revealed, then you must definitely go to law enforcement agencies and write a statement to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation. PRF must check where the money went.
Now the Pension Fund has the ability to send requests to any authorities. The PRF may check whether the person is entitled to receive a certificate. In this case, fraud with a fake birth certificate may be excluded.
Maternity Fraud: Litigation
Anyone who is just thinking about how to use maternity capital needs to remember that the state will not allow the use of the issued money for other purposes. Be sure to disclose any fraud with maternity capital, punishment will be strict, up to 10 years in prison. In some cases, a fine of one million rubles may be imposed, and there are many such cases throughout the country.
The punishment can be very severe, it all depends on the severity of the crime. For example:
- If a person has provided false information about himself or about the real estate that he intends to buy, then in this case he can get off with a fine or refund of funds issued as state aid. Sometimes there may be a suspended sentence.
- If there is a conspiracy with third parties in order to conduct illegal operations, a fine of up to 500 thousand rubles may be imposed. The fraudster can be sent to forced labor for up to 5 years or imprisoned for the same period.
- If a group was organized with the aim of deceiving or inciting citizens to fraud, then in this case the court gives the most severe punishment - up to 10 years in prison. In rare cases, it can be replaced by a fine of 1 million rubles.
The most sensational cases of fraud can be considered as follows:
- In Nizhny Novgorod, the case of one citizen was considered, who spent maternity capital on buying a house. At first glance, everything was done in accordance with the law. But with a thorough check it was revealed that the building is not suitable for living: no communications, windows, doors. As a result, the court declared the transaction illegal and accused the woman of misuse of funds. Sentenced her to a suspended sentence.Such decisions are made infrequently.
- But in Kurgan, the case of another woman was considered, who was already not so lucky. The woman was sentenced to imprisonment for one and a half years and to compensation for the allowance issued by the state. And the thing is that she forged documents to repay a loan in one of the companies. The money was paid, but the company turned out to be dummy.
Not in all cases is it possible to disclose fraud with maternity capital. Fraud Qualification Issues are common, but still dubious schemes are revealed sooner or later, and the punishment can be much harder than in the above cases. Anyway, there are those who cash money, but these cases are very rare. There are a lot of conscious citizens, and one of them will necessarily inform the relevant authorities that the money has gone for other purposes.