Illinois. A federal grand jury has indicted three partners in a failed Chicago North Shore development project, a title company executive and a loan officer for allegedly engaging in a $15.7 million residential mortgage and construction loan fraud scheme to help finance the failed mixed-use commercial development known as the Center of the Northshore. The government accuses

Office of the Comptroller of the CurrencyFederal Reserve SystemFederal Deposit Insurance Corp.Securities and Exchange CommissionFederal Housing Finance AgencyDepartment of Housing and Urban Development Credit Risk Retention – Proposed Rule: Comments Due. Public comments on the interagency proposed rule on credit risk retention are due June 10, 2011. (See...

Good judicial fortune turned against Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems recently in a foreclosure-related case in Oregon despite previous positive precedence. In Hooker v. Northwest Trustee Services, the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon granted the plaintiff's request for a declaratory judgment that defendants MERS, Bank of America and Northwest Trustee Services as successor trustee violated...

The states and the federal government continue to rack up some key legal settlements with various mortgage servicers. One such settlement was brought about by the Ohio Attorney General and the state Department of Commerce against Carrington Mortgage Services involving a lawsuit that was filed against the subprime servicer back in 2009. The two Ohio agencies and Carrington agreed to mortgage servicing standards that will apply...

Mortgage lenders have a number of questions about the two new prototype disclosure forms circulated for public comment recently by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but none of the issues appears to be a deal-breaker...

Republicans in Congress appeared to pull one over on President Obama and any intention he may have to make a recess appointment of Elizabeth Warren to be the first head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. House Speaker John Boehner, R-OH, refused to allow a vote on the Senate’s adjournment resolution, preventing...

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has issued a proposed rule that features some important changes to national bank preemption and the agency’s visitorial authority in the wake of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. But industry legal experts say it’s too soon to tell what kind of effect the rule might have on the mortgage lending market or whether it may prompt charter movement among financial institutions...

In an unusual convergence, consumer advocacy groups have joined with mortgage lending and real estate interests to warn federal regulators about a host of negative consequences with their interagency proposed rulemaking to implement the risk retention and “qualified residential mortgage” provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act...

VA originations fell 10.4 percent during the first quarter, following a downward trend in all four corners of the single-family mortgage originations market during the period. Veteran mortgage originations totaled $18.15 billion in 1Q11, down from $20.26 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to Department of Veterans Affairs data. Interest Rate Refinancing loans accounted for 40.7 percent of total VA loan production during the first three months of the year. The top 25 VA lenders combined for $12.08 billion with a little more than half in refis for a 66.6 percent share of the VA market. They, too, saw their volume drop ... [Includes one graph and one data chart]

The U.S. Supreme Court did FHA lenders a small favor recently by limiting the use of evidence obtained from government sources in cases brought under the False Claim Act, lately the bane of mortgage lenders that originate government-insured loans and are accused of fraud and abusive lending practices. The opinion could discourage whistleblowers from bringing FCA lawsuits if they base their allegations not on their own experience but on information obtained through the federal Freedom of Information Act. In a May 16 decision in Schindler Elevator Corp. v. United States ex rel. Kirk, No. 10-88, the Supreme Court ruled ...