The Department of Housing and Urban Development is cracking down on discriminatory practices against expectant mothers as it announced charges filed against a private mortgage insurance company and a major lender as well as a $750,000 settlement agreement with another lender for similar offenses. During a news conference last week, HUD officials laid out the department’s charges against Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp., PNC Mortgage and others for allegedly discriminating against pregnant loan applicants in violation of the Fair Housing Act. The FHAct prohibits...

Consumer and civil rights groups are up in arms over the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s recent interpretation of preemption under the Dodd-Frank Act, which would allow the OCC to generally retain its existing preemption regulations. The uproar stemmed from a letter the OCC sent to certain members of Congress on May 12 lay-ing out the agency’s views of its preemption powers under the new preemption provisions of Title X of the Dodd-Frank Act. Those views have been embodied in a proposed OCC rulemaking implementing several DFA provisions, including...

The Home Affordable Refinance Program generated 8.2 percent less business during the first quarter of 2011 than in the previous three-month period, according to new government data. Although overall HARP activity slowed in early 2011, there was a measurable increase in refinances of performing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans that had current loan-to-value ratios exceed-ing 105 percent. But such loans accounted for only 1.7 percent of total refi activity by the two govern-ment-sponsored enterprises. HARP transactions accounted for...[includes one data chart]

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...

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 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...

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...

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