One of the country's most elaborate property scams was laid before an official inquiry yesterday when the Real Estate Institute aired details of a mortgage-ramping scheme, reports Anne Gibson in the New Zealand Herald.

The Serious Fraud Office and Inland Revenue have investigated the web of deals in which agents traded properties among themselves to make potentially big rewards, inducing banks to give them more than the properties were worth.

Bank of New Zealand, ANZ and Westpac were all named as easy and sometimes "familiar" sources of loans to the agents, who stood to make big gains from last year's booming Auckland housing market.

The banks are said to have mostly failed to question the deals and dispensed with the usual precaution of requiring a valuation because applications came to them from Barfoot & Thompson agents on that firm's trusted letterhead.