In addition to the ability-to-repay rule itself, the CFPB has issued a proposal to seek comment on whether to adjust the final rule for certain community-based lenders, housing stabilization programs, certain refinancing programs of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac and federal agencies, and small portfolio creditors. The bureau wants to know whether the rule should be modified to address potential adverse consequences on certain narrowly-defined categories of lending programs. Specifically, the proposal includes amendments...
The CFPB has issued a final rule that increases Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act coverage for mortgages with high interest rates, fees or prepayment penalties. The rule expands HOEPA to cover home]purchase loans and home equity lines of credit; revises the lawfs rate and fee thresholds for coverage; and adds a new coverage test based on a transactionfs prepayment penalties. The final rule implements the Dodd-Frank Actfs revisions to HOEPAfs coverage tests by providing that a transaction is a high-cost mortgage if any...
The CFPB issued a final rule it inherited from the Federal Reserve that generally extends the current required duration of an escrow account on certain higher-priced mortgage loans from a minimum of one year to a minimum of five years. To preserve access to credit, the rule creates an exemption from the escrow requirement for small creditors that operate predominately in rural or underserved areas.Specifically, to be eligible for the exemption, a creditor must:make more than half of its first-lien mortgages in rural or...
It looks like all of the clamoring that mortgage lenders have engaged in over the last year about the volume and expanse of new regulations has earned them a bit of a reprieve on at least one front. The CFPB now expects to issue its final rule on the combined and integrated Truth in Lending Act and Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act consumer mortgage disclosures in September, according to the bureau’s semiannual regulatory agenda released last week and in commentary included in its final rule on escrow accounts for...
Mortgage banking entities and credit unions are trying to prepare as best they can for an anticipated onslaught of new regulations from the CFPB that will likely dramatically reshape the landscape of mortgage lending for years and perhaps generations to come. Part of their coping strategy is to enlist the aid of bureau officials themselves to help measure out all the new rules into more digestible portions. The Mortgage Bankers Association, for one, recently wrote the CFPB, suggesting the agency use a staged...
The CFPB is apparently under such time constraints to promulgate its various rules under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, it can no longer wait to publish them in the Federal Register. A recent final rule from the bureau says its final rules will now be considered “issued” on the earlier of the rules’ posting on the agency’s website or publication in the Federal Register. The CFPB says the definition of when a rule is issued has legal consequences, and the bureau generally intends to issue rules by...
Is the Mortgage Servicing Rule Next? The CFPB has a field hearing scheduled for January 17 in Atlanta, and the industry scuttlebutt is that the bureau might release its mortgage servicing rulemaking sometime the day before. Last week, the CFPB released to the press, on whatfs known as an gembargoedh basis, many of the details of its gqualified mortgageh/ability-to-repay final rule on the afternoon before the bureaufs Jan. 10 mortgage policy field hearing in Baltimore, MD. The actual final rule, however, was not...
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this week issued a long-awaited final rule that establishes ability-to-repay and qualified mortgage (QM) standards, as well as a second, temporary category of QMs for government-backed mortgages to avoid market disruption. At the same time, the CFPB sought comment on a proposed rule that would exclude new and existing FHA, VA and Rural Housing Service (U.S. Department of Agriculture) programs that facilitate refinancings for borrowers at risk of delinquency or default. The temporary QM category was spurred by CFPB’s concern about the ...
The Obama administration is making a renewed push in 2013 for a government-backed non-agency refinance program, potentially the third major phase of the Home Affordable Refinance Program. However, there appear to be numerous hurdles to using the government-sponsored enterprises to help refi non-agency borrowers and a similar proposal using the FHA has yet to gain widespread support in Congress. Under the latest HARP 3.0 proposal, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would refinance certain non-agency mortgages with negative equity, waive mortgage insurance requirements and charge the borrowers higher guaranty fees. The proposal would require approval from Congress. “After taking significant taxpayer bailouts, the GSEs’ fiscal condition is...
The securitization market generated $1.847 trillion in new residential MBS and non-mortgage ABS in 2012, reversing two straight years of declining volume, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking. Last year’s output was up 41.2 percent from total issuance in 2011, and it marked the strongest annual new issuance volume since 2009. Total securitization volume rose modestly, by 2.3 percent, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter, and activity cooled significantly in December. As has been the case since the financial market meltdown in 2008, securitization was dominated...[Includes three data charts]
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