To bolster some much-needed credibility and quality assurance for consumers seeking appraisals, the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should set minimum standards for states to apply in registering appraisal management companies, a recent Government Accountability Office report said. “Partly in reaction to appraiser independence requirements, lenders have increasingly relied upon AMCs to perform certain functions,” the GAO observed. “Despite the increased use of AMCs, direct federal oversight of AMCs is limited because ...

JPMorgan Chase officials say they plan to liquidate the company’s giant $154 billion mortgage portfolio to “close to zero” as it works through the bank’s mortgage losses and litigation of loan-servicing and foreclosure practices. During the company’s earnings conference call with analysts, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon noted that the company will continue to reduce its mortgage holdings by 10 percent to 15 percent a year “forever.” Last year, the company reduced its mortgage holdings by $19.3 billion. JPMorgan reported earnings of ...

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Associate Director Raj Date told lawmakers earlier this month that mortgage servicing will be one of the CFPB’s priorities as soon as it’s open for business. In particular, Date told lawmakers at a joint hearing of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit that the agency will begin addressing two structural problems in the mortgage servicing market, one of which is that the vast majority of borrowers do not get to choose their mortgage servicer...

Lawmakers and regulators seem increasingly cognizant of the potential their actions to improve mortgage servicing may have to exacerbate the difficult environment servicers are confronting in terms of helping struggling homeowners, unclogging the backlog of housing inventory and complying with all necessary laws and regulations in the process. Industry representatives hope that awareness will keep policymakers from going overboard, but they remain anxious while multiple sets of potentially inconsistent and conflicting servicing standards are in play...

Mortgage servicers that have not yet contemplated adjusting their practices to conform to the principles illustrated in the consent decrees federal regulators issued earlier this year against 14 top servicers, as well as the June 30 guidance from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, better think again, and quickly, a leading industry attorney is recommending. “I think the OCC’s guidance is a clear statement of regulator expectations as to the performance of bank servicers, both in terms of looking back and addressing past issues and in creating an appropriate compliance structure going forward,” Andrew Sandler, chairman of the BuckleySandler law firm, told Inside Regulatory Strategies. “The expectation should be that other regulators, including the Federal Reserve and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will have very similar sets of expectations.”..

The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced settlements last week with two mortgage lending-related entities over alleged violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act having to do with affiliates and fees. In one case, HUD alleged that title company Fidelity National Financial Inc., through its subsidiaries, paid fees for the referral of settlement service business in violation of Section 8 of RESPA...

Democrat Sens. Tom Carper (Delaware) and Mark Warner (Virginia), the authors of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act’s preemption amendment, recently wrote Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, expressing surprise and disappointment at the Treasury’s interpretation of the provision. Earlier in the month, George Madison, the Treasury’s general counsel, wrote to the OCC to comment on the agency’s proposed rule on federal preemption, saying that Dodd-Frank’s preemption provision does not uphold the Barnett standard...

The Justice Department has sued Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp., the nation’s largest mortgage insurance company, and two of its underwriting staffers, accusing them of discriminating against women mortgage loan applicants who were on paid maternity leave. The government’s suit, filed July 5, 2011, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, accuses MGIC of requiring women on paid maternity leave to return to work before the company would insure their mortgages...

On July 6, in Somers v. Deutsche, Oregon state court judge Roderick Boutin from the Fifth Judicial District ruled that Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems is the beneficiary of the deed of trust. “[MERS] is identified as the beneficiary,” the judge wrote. “That MERS and its successors, as the named beneficiary, is the nominee of the lender and its successors is not contrary to Oregon law and is consistent with the express terms of the deed of trust made and delivered by the Somers.”..