House Financial Services CommitteeBills to Shut Down Ineffective Foreclosure Programs. Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus, R-AL, announced a subcommittee hearing and a full committee markup of four bills that will eliminate...

A West Virginia judge has ordered Quicken Loans to pay a 45-year old licensed practical nurse and her adult disabled daughter more than $2.7 million in punitive damages and legal costs after finding the lender guilty of fraudulent and deceptive mortgage lending practices. In a Feb. 17 decision, Judge Arthur Recht of the Circuit Court of Ohio County, WV, concluded...

Major mortgage servicers are bracing for the worst as a result of the recent state and federal investigations of foreclosure irregularities, securities filings show. Foreclosure-related probes by numerous federal agencies and a multistate task force of attorneys general could result...

House Republicans have voted, among other things, to slash initial funding for the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection by nearly 60 percent in an effort to curb the new agency’s oversight powers over banks and nonbanks. By a vote of 235 to 180, the House passed a new continuing resolution (H.R. 1), the Full Year Continuing Appropriations Act, which would limit...

Many of the allegations made in the context of mortgage foreclosures are making their way into bankruptcy courts as a result of the robo-signing mess, according to compliance experts. Bankruptcy judges are now looking closely at mortgage documents, particularly with respect to proofs-of-claim and other affidavits and attestations of ownership and standing that must be made...

Federal regulators are deeply divided on the amount of fines and the scope of procedural changes that should be imposed against major mortgage servicers to settle state and federal claims of fraud and other improprieties in the home foreclosure process. While no settlement agreement has been reached...

The Obama administration’s bid to scale back the government footprint in the housing market by allowing conforming loan limits to decline would have a measurable impact on the FHA program. The administration wants to let the “emergency” high-cost loan limit – now $729,750 in the most expensive housing markets – sunset...[Includes two data charts]

Federal regulators are moving toward establishing national servicing standards, which could have a major impact on subprime servicers. An estimated $630.0 billion in subprime mortgages were outstanding at the end of 2010, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets... [includes one chart]

The Obama administration’s proposal to reform the government-sponsored enterprises was largely endorsed by participants in the non-agency market. However, a significant resumption in the issuance of non-agency mortgage-backed securities still appears to be years away... [Includes one graph]