JLC ??AUGUST 1991 Several studies and a recent series of articles in the Boston Globe have implicated Massachusetts home improvement contractors in a scheme to sell overpriced repairs and highinterest second mortgages to homeowners. The allegations, which are being investigated by both law enforcement agencies and members of the U.S. congressional housing committee, hold that home improvement contractors, serving either formally or informally as agents of second- mortgage companies, systematically duped elderly and minority homeowners into taking out high-interest home equity loans to pay for repairs. Many reputable contractors, of course, often refer their clients to lenders. But in these cases, the allegations hold that the contractors received high finder's fees from the second-mortgage companies, and often served as loan sales agents, misrepresenting interest rates and loan fees, so that the homeowners ended
