In Commonwealth Property Advocates, LLC v. Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc.; CitiMortgage, Inc.; et al., the Utah Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court determination that MERS has the right to enforce deeds of trust regardless of whether the underlying debt has been sold and securitized. In this case, the original borrower had transferred her interest in the property to a third-party entity, Commonwealth Property Advocates, which litigated questioning MERS’ authority under the trust…
AARP and two law firms recently filed a class action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco against Wells Fargo and Fannie Mae on behalf of reverse mortgage borrowers and their survivors in an attempt to keep Home Equity Conversion Mortgage foreclosures and evictions in the state at bay. …
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled against the conservative watch dog group, Judicial Watch, and in favor of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, determining that the FHFA is not required to release documentation revealing the extent to which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may have contributed to political campaigns. …
In Simms Parris v. Countrywide Financial Corp., the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed the lower court’s dismissal of a consumer claim against Countrywide, ruling that the homeowner, Simms Parris, had no direct cause of action under the Fair Credit Reporting Act because she did not first notify the credit reporting agency of her dispute with the lender. …
Policymakers interested in pushing national mortgage servicing standards are right to make sure that homeowners who were harmed by abusive industry practices are compensated. However, there is still a tremendous amount of uncertainty in the housing and housing finance markets, and any servicing standards that are developed must address that if the weights that hold the markets back are to be cut lose and private capital comes back in full force, a top industry…
The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is moving rapidly along with its integrated mortgage disclosure project, issuing a third iteration of disclosure prototypes and closing off the comment period on them in just the past two weeks since the last issue of Inside Regulatory Strategies went to press. This time around, the CFPB issued another pair of disclosures, named “Camellia” and “Azalea,” which would be used for mortgages with a balloon payment at the…
One of the most important issues for mortgage lenders and homebuyers alike in the whole qualified mortgage/risk-retention/ability-to-repay debate is how much legal liability lenders will have over the mortgages they originate in the Dodd-Frank era. For policymakers, one of the biggest decisions they will have to make to bring certainty to that question is which legal standard to impose, a “rebuttable presumption” or a “safe harbor.” …
Short of a market miracle, the chances of other Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities servicers catching up with market leaders Wells Fargo and Bank of America are practically nil. Wells Fargo and BofA appear to have a solid lock on 55.0 percent of Ginnie Mae servicing outstanding based on a combined portfolio total of $634.0 billion at the end of June. Overall, the supply of Ginnie Mae servicing grew 3.8 percent during the second quarter. Wells Fargo commanded a 28.2 percent share of Ginnie Mae servicing during the second quarter, up 4.7 percent from the first quarter. Not far behind is second-ranked BofA with a 26.6 percent share, thanks to... [Includes one data chart]
The zero risk weight for Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities remains despite Standard & Poor’s recent lowering of the long-term rating of the U.S. government and federal agencies from AAA to AA+ and affirmation of the A-1+ short-term rating, according to federal regulators. The rating agency also removed both the short- and long-term ratings from CreditWatch, where they have been since July 14 with negative implications. On August 5, federal banking and credit union regulators announced that, for risk-based capital purposes, the risk weights for Treasury securities and securities guaranteed by...
The FHA has announced changes to help ensure prompt, accurate and consistent responses to industry and public inquiries about FHA matters. The new primary electronic mail address and Internet site of the FHA Resource Center, which includes a Frequently-Asked-Questions site, will be easier to remember and access, according to the FHA. The new email address is answers@hud.gov, which replaced the previous info@fhaoutreach.com. The site address for the FHA FAQ site will change from www.fhaoutreach.gov/FHAFAQ to www.hud.gov/answers. Users should begin using the new addresses exclusively on Aug. 15, according to the FHA. The primary...
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