The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit held a hearing Tuesday to consider legislation that would affect the mortgage industry and institutions regulated by the CFPB.

tressler@imfpubs.com Homeowners and appraisers are closer to seeing eye-to-eye on home valuations than at any time in the last two years, according to new data from Quicken Loans. “Home appraisals were an average of 0.5 percent lower than what owners expected in December,” the lender said, “These two data points have moved closer together since November, when appraised values were 0.67 percent lower than homeowners’ estimates, and far improved from one year ago when there was…

The origination of reverse mortgages fell by 7.3 percent on a sequential basis in the third quarter of 2017 in the wake of changes made to the program by FHA.

It’s possible that mortgage lenders and servicers will see the CFPB during the tenure of Acting Director Mick Mulvaney use the five-year “look back” the bureau is required to perform to make significant changes to a pair of major rulemakings: the Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act integrated disclosure rule (TRID) and the ability-to-repay rule. Donald Lampe, a partner with Morrison & Foerster law firm in Washington, DC, explained, “In Dodd-Frank, there’s a five-year required regulatory review, and there are two of those regulatory reviews that are still under advisement: one for TRID and the other for the ATR/qualified mortgage rule. “If I’m thinking about 2018, I feel pretty confident to say that those processes bear careful attention ...

As 2017 came to an end, the CFPB and other federal prudential regulators informed the industry they would implement a “good faith efforts” enforcement philosophy toward lender compliance with the new requirements under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act that took effect Jan. 1. The CFPB in 2015 put out its rule under which financial institutions were required to collect and report new mortgage data points for loans made after Jan. 1, 2018. This past August, the bureau released a final rule that clarified some reporting requirements, increased the threshold for collecting and reporting data on home equity lines of credit for two years, and made various technical corrections. “The bureau recognizes the significant systems and operational challenges needed to meet ...

In conjunction with the interagency regulatory pledge to pursue a “good faith efforts” approach to the enforcement of new reporting requirements under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, the CFPB also announced it plans to initiate a rulemaking to reconsider various aspects of the 2015 HMDA rule – most notably on issues such as the institutional and transactional coverage tests and the rule’s discretionary data points. “More specifically, the rulemaking may re-examine lending-activity criteria that determine whether institutions are required to report mortgage data,” it said. Other revisions might be made to the new requirements to report certain types of transactions. The bureau also is likely to re-assess the additional information that its HMDA rule requires beyond the new data points specified ...

Banks are increasingly worried about staying compliant with all the recent regulations they’re contending with – and the new Home Mortgage Disclosure Act requirements are still one of the biggest concerns. A new regulatory and risk management survey from Wolters Kluwer based on 2017 data registered a 3 percent increase over 2016. “The ability to maintain compliance in an environment of heightened regulatory oversight – highlighted by a spike in the number of major new regulations – remained the biggest overall compliance concern, as cited by 67 percent of respondents,” the report stated. Concerns over fair lending regulatory examinations increased by 5 percent to 46 percent, and concerns jumped 13 percent in measuring the ability to manage risk across all lines of business ...

Regardless of the outcome of the struggle for control over the CFPB in the wake of former Director Richard Cordray’s departure, lenders are being conservatively advised to maintain compliance practices that can withstand the ebb and flow of political appointees, according to one top compliance attorney.“While the Trump administration is pushing for deregulation and removing the independence of the CFPB, if it is successful, it may be risky and costly for the financial industry to abandon all of the concepts of fairness to consumers that have been embodied in the CFPB’s actions,” Maria Macoubrie, of counsel in the Kansas City, MO, office of the Stinson Leonard Street law firm, said in a recent online blog. She conceded that less ...

Democrat Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut recently introduced legislation to allow state attorneys general and other state law enforcers to issue subpoenas during the course of investigations regarding compliance with state law by national banks. The Accountability for Wall Street Executives Act of 2017 would clarify that state attorneys general have authority to conduct visitorial oversight of federally-chartered national banks. It also would revise language in the National Bank Act that the Supreme Court interpreted as limiting the visitorial powers of state law enforcers when addressing compliance with state law by national banks. Additionally, the measure would permit subpoenas for suspected violations of real estate lending laws. “With ...

New Chief of Staff at CFPB was Staff Director of the House Financial Services Committee. The CFPB named a new chief of staff Jan. 5: Kristen Sutton Mork, who’s leaving her post as staff director of the House Financial Services Committee. The announcement did not come from the CFPB – it came from Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, chairman of the HFSC, who mentioned it in an email sent to members of the media.... Republican Senator Wants Leandra English Investigated. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-WI, reportedly has asked the U.S. Office of Special Counsel to probe Leandra English’s move to “burrow” into a “career position” at the CFPB. One major broadcast news organization, citing a letter from Johnson, reported last week that Johnson asserted her move was “hastily approved” as part of “a flawed vetting process” in the wake of President Trump’s election. The report could not be immediately confirmed.