Perhaps the single most critical aspect of the CFPB’s pending assessment of its ability-to-repay/qualified mortgage rule will be what happens to the so-called GSE patch. Under the patch, one of the discretionary elements the bureau added to the Dodd-Frank Act parameters of the rule, loans eligible for sale to the two government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are granted safe-harbor QM status regardless of the loans’ debt-to-income ratio, as long as they meet other QM requirements. “Without that exemption, the bureau realized that being left with the standard QM (with the 43 percent DTI and Appendix Q) would have significantly limited mortgage lending,” said Richard Andreano, a partner in the mortgage banking unit at the Ballard Spahr law firm ...