Missouri. The St. Louis County Council recently approved Councilwoman Hazel Erby’s Mortgage Foreclosure Intervention Code, which will require mortgage lenders to offer homeowners foreclosure mediation for all homes with loans in default in the county. Mortgage lenders will be required to pay for mediation services between themselves and the homeowners; defaulted homeowners have 30 days to respond in writing to a notice of mediation from the mediation coordinator. Erby introduced the code in response to the nearly 2,000 homes...

As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s forthcoming ability-to-repay/qualified mortgage rulemaking continues to keep the mortgage lending community up at night, talk of a compromise legal standard has moved beyond the zero-sum/either-or approach that would involve either a rebuttal presumption or a safe harbor. Speaking at the North Carolina Bankers Association’s American Mortgage Conference in Raleigh, NC, last week, some industry representatives suggested it could be both – or more precisely, first one and then the other...

In light of the collapse of the mortgage market, the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, and the creation of a new sheriff in town in the form of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the time has come for the mortgage industry to evolve a new compliance model, according to a top industry consultant. “Stresses on the mortgage market are breaking the traditional compliance model,” said Jo Ann Barefoot, co-chair of Treliant Risk Advisors, a compliance, risk management, and strategic advisory firm for the financial services industry...

The Mortgage Bankers Association, the Leading Builders of America and the Real Estate Services Providers Council Inc. joined together to express “profound concern” to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau regarding the agency’s proposed treatment of fees paid to affiliated settlement service providers under the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act. “We strongly support a competitive mortgage market where builders and lenders large and small, as well as unaffiliated and affiliated third-party settlement providers...

The Community Mortgage Banking Project, the Housing Policy Council of The Financial Services Roundtable, and the Mortgage Bankers Association recently expressed concern to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau about some aspects of the agency’s proposed rulemaking on high-cost mortgages that would implement changes to the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act as per the Dodd-Frank Act. The changes would establish new definitions of points and fees and prepayment penalties as well as new restrictions and requirements...

Sixteen industry trade groups urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to abandon a proposal to create a new, higher “all in” annual percentage rate calculation that would include additional fees and charges. The APR measure is one part of the CFPB’s massive proposed rule designed to streamline and harmonize mortgage disclosure requirements under the Truth in Lending Act and Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. The trade groups pointed out that the bureau’s own research indicates that consumers confuse the APR...

The federal government thought that Bank of America went too far in documenting the income of a handful of borrowers with disabilities to make sure they could pay on their mortgages. That’s going to cost the lender an aggregate amount yet to be determined, as well as force the lender to change some of its underwriting practices, even though Bank of America insists it was following policy established by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Bank of America reached an agreement with the Department of Justice last week that...

In another sign of just how anxious the mortgage lending community is about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s pending ability-to-repay rulemaking, especially the aspects that deal with qualified mortgages, the leading industry trade groups again wrote to CFPB Director Richard Cordray late last week to reiterate their views and concerns. In particular, they said they wanted to express their continued strong support for a QM that meets three critical requirements, the first of which is that the QM “must be broadly...

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray again came under fire from Congressional Republicans who remain opposed to the bureau and its level of power and authority, and concerned about its impact on smaller mortgage lending entities. During a hearing last week of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-AL, the ranking Republican, once again recited his refrain of concern about just how accountable the CFPB is, starting with how the bureau has exercised its authority, citing...

The first six months of 2012 saw heightened activity in FHA’s Streamline Refinancing as borrowers scrambled to take advantage of the program’s lower insurance premiums. Streamline refi originations jumped 90.5 percent during the last two quarters compared to volume reported over the same period last year. Production rose 13.5 percent from the first to the second quarter. Volume increases have been amazing since the third quarter of last year, when lenders reported $4.7 billion in total streamline refi originations. Since that period, production leapfrogged to ... (1 chart)