After rising for two consecutive quarters, borrower complaints to the CFPB about their private student loans have dropped for the last two reporting periods, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside the CFPB. Following up on the second quarter drop of 16.3 percent, borrower gripes fell 14.5 percent in the third quarter, the latest data from the bureau’s consumer complaint database show. Among the top 10 companies ranked by borrower grumblings, a wide variety of results could be clearly seen. Six of the top 10 saw double-digit declines during the third quarter, but two others saw increases of that magnitude, most notably Nelnet, up 33.3 percent from the second quarter. The biggest drop among the top 10 was ...

A recent study by Nationwide Title Clearing, Inc., a research and document-processing vendor for the residential mortgage industry, found that nearly half a million homeowners could be negatively affected by inaccurate servicing records. NTC found that out of 2,285,665 servicing database records that were verified against the collateral file, 24,490 loans (1.07 percent) had significant discrepancies. When viewed against roughly 49 million outstanding residential mortgages, that suggests as many as 490,000 homeowners could be affected by faulty servicer database records. “These database inaccuracies might have represented ‘acceptable risk’ in times past – but in today’s compliance-oriented landscape, such a high number of errors could bring increased scrutiny and penalties from CFPB regulators, not to mention ...

The CFPB needs to provide additional clarity on how a “rolling delinquency” triggers the 120-day delinquency period required before a mortgage servicer can begin foreclosure under the bureau’s mortgage servicing rule, the American Bankers Association said. A rolling delinquency occurs when a delinquent borrower resumes making some payments but never becomes current on the loan. In a letter to the CFPB last week, the ABA noted that in responding to inquiries as to how banks should apply the 120-day rule in rolling delinquency situations, the CFPB has informally recommended that servicers look to common interpretations of “delinquency,” which may be found in best practices, industry standards, state law and contract law. “Because borrowers have a private right of action to ...

As part of the transaction, company founder and president Steven Horne will step down as president and chief executive officer, but will remain as a senior advisor.

Note to Ocwen management: every US employee is a potential mortgage customer. Think about it.

The New York Department of Financial Services has found serious issues at Ocwen Financial, including the backdating of “potentially hundreds of thousands” of letters to borrowers, the NYDFS said in a letter to the nonbank servicer released this week. The allegations could be the most damaging yet for Ocwen, which has faced concerns from the NYDFS since February when Ocwen placed a planned $39.2 billion mortgage acquisition on indefinite hold in an effort to resolve issues raised by the agency ...

Ginnie Mae this week provided new details to the long-anticipated plan for increased issuer net worth and liquidity and a new performance scoring method for issuer activity – changes that could adversely affect small issuers and portfolio servicers. In remarks at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual convention in Las Vegas, Ginnie Mae President Ted Tozer said the changes are part of a larger effort to ensure the continuing flexibility and availability of the agency’s mortgage-backed securities program to as many entities as possible. New types of issuers and counterparties have entered the agency-backed MBS market in the wake of the financial crisis, which called for adjustments and tailored approaches to the evolving housing finance market, Tozer noted. Tozer said both policy changes and staff expertise will ensure the success of ...

The FHA warned it would soon be sending notices to lenders who are overdue in completing their annual recertification packages, a rule violation that could land them before the Mortgagee Review Board for disciplinary action. Lenders who were unable to submit their recertification packages containing the required financial reports, annual recertification statements and the renewal fee payment will be receiving notices of deficiency from the FHA. FHA extended the filing deadline to June 27, 30 days after the deployment of the new Lender Electronic Assessment Portal (LEAP) system used in the lender recertification process. Traditionally, lenders were required to access both FHA Connection and Lender Assessment Sub-System (LASS) to complete the annual recertification process. LEAP will now enable lenders to complete all ...

FHA to Host First Briefing Session on the First Installment of the Single Family Policy Handbook. The FHA will have a webinar on Nov. 6, 2014, from 2 p.m.-3 p.m., for stakeholders in connection with the first completed section of the Single Family Housing Policy Handbook, the Origination through Post-Closing/Endorsement for Title II Forward Mortgages (Origination through Post-Closing). The new handbook is designed to make it easier for stakeholders to do business with the FHA and support greater access to mortgage credit for qualified borrowers. Once fully completed, the handbook will contain all FHA origination and underwriting policies that lenders use in making FHA-insured loans. The FHA published the first section of the handbook on Sept. 30, which becomes effective for FHA case numbers assigned on or after June 15, 2015. The agency urged lenders to ...