African-American homeowners in New York City are seeking certification of a class action alleging that the government’s distressed-loan sale program discriminates against black homeowners. The suit alleges that black FHA homeowners in default are disproportionately affected by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s note sale program and the subsequent “predatory” mortgage servicing. HUD Secretary Julian Castro, FHA Commissioner Ed Golding, Caliber Home Loans and U.S. Bank Trust were named defendants in the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The defendants’ business practices allegedly violated the plaintiffs’ due-process rights as well as the Fair Housing Act. Under the note sale program, delinquent FHA mortgages are pooled and auctioned off to the highest bidder. According to the plaintiffs, the bidders are usually private-equity firms or ...

PHH says loss of the HSBC subservicing contract on the 139,000 loans will reduce pre-tax earnings by $10 million.

The nation’s subservicers increased their base of contracts to $1.615 trillion in the second quarter, a modest 1.6 percent gain from the prior period, but a handsome 17.0 percent improvement from the same period a year earlier, according to survey figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance. Overall, these third-party processing vendors – who split the monthly fee with the actual owner of the servicing strip – control 15.9 percent of all residential mortgage debt in the nation. A year ago the reading was 14.0 percent. And it’s...[Includes one data table]

Rushmore Loan Management Services, Irvine, CA – a subservicing specialist – plans to enter the origination market early next month, a rarity for firms whose forte is processing loans for others. Company CEO Terry Smith told Inside Mortgage Finance that the nonbank’s direct-to-consumer arm is scheduled to begin funding loans on Sept. 1. “Our focus will be on originating loans – and servicing those loans,” Smith said. He also noted...

The Federal Communications Commission has refused an industry request to exempt mortgage servicing calls from prohibitions against the use of “robocalls,” or automated dialing and calling systems, to contact delinquent borrowers on their cell phones. In a long-awaited final rule limiting the way servicers can collect on student loans, mortgages and other debts owed to the federal government, the FCC said it would not make a decision on whether the statutory exemption from the Telephone Consumer Protection Act’s “prior express consent” requirements applies to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans or their servicers. The TCPA and FCC regulations require...

Rising costs for mortgage servicing and more frequent transfers have become key issues for the industry, according to panelists at a seminar hosted by the Urban Institute and CoreLogic last week. Ed DeMarco, former acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and now a senior fellow at the Milken Institute, said that mortgage servicing compensation has not changed in decades as the servicing industry itself has undergone what he called “profound changes.” He noted...

From what we understand, Stonegate Bank is not very active in residential lending, but Insignia is…

A CFPB nonbank registration system might be used to collect financial and operational data and information on a lender’s organizational structure…

The nation’s three largest residential servicers – Wells Fargo, Chase and Bank of America – all showed sequential increases in late payments...

Not only are CHLA and CMLA unhappy with the lack of representation, they want the CFPB to form a “Community Mortgage Banking Advisory Council...”