U.S. Appeals Court Rejects HUD’s Eristic View of Fee Split, RESPA Not Intended to be Price Control Statute, Says Panel
May 27, 2002
A federal appeals court last week rejected the government’s policy on settlement service overcharges, stating that the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act was meant to prohibit kickbacks, not set broad price controls. In a May 22 decision in Boulware v. Crossland Mortgage Corp., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld a district court decision not to go beyond the “plain meaning” of RESPA’s prohibition of fee splitting between two parties.