A loan officer is taking on the powerful Ohio Association of Mortgage Brokers in a campaign to weed out what he calls unscrupulous brokers.

Robert Ruckstuhl said the group gives loan officers a bad name. "Every other professional organization monitors itself, polices itself.

The OAMB refuses to police itself," said Ruckstuhl, of Warrensville Heights, about 15 miles southeast of Cleveland.

A message seeking comment from the association was left Thursday by The Associated Press.

Brokerages and their loan officers arrange most mortgages and refinancings in Ohio, acting as go-betweens for home buyers and lenders.

The standoff comes at a sensitive time for mortgage brokers.

Ohio leads the nation in the rate at which people are losing their homes to foreclosure, sparking complaints about aggressive brokers and lenders who ring up profits by coaxing people into loans they can't afford.

Ruckstuhl has threatened the brokers association with legal action.

Last year, Ruckstuhl obtained rights to the association's name and logo after the organization failed to renew its state incorporation records.

Ruckstuhl had offered to sell back the name and logo for $1 if the North Canton-based association agreed this week to a series of reforms.

The group did not respond by Thursday's deadline, Ruckstuhl said, so he's proceeding with plans to ask Franklin County Common Pleas Court in Columbus for a temporary restraining order that would prohibit the association from using the name and logo.

Ruckstuhl said one of the industry's open secrets is that mortgage brokerages hire hundreds, perhaps thousands, of unlicensed loan officers.

By law, unlicensed employees can't close loans, but he said they routinely arrange mortgages and do all of the work for licensed brokers, who simply sign off on the deals.

Denise Lee, a spokeswoman with the state Commerce Department, said the scope of the problem is unclear, but, "We do see it, it does happen."

In July, the Commerce Department revoked the operating license of American National Mortgage in Painesville, in part because it used unlicensed loan officers, Lee said.

The company is appealing the ruling in Lake County Common Pleas Court

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