The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General is seeking indemnification from a sponsored third-party originator (TPO) for potential losses of more than $1.5 million due to poor loan documentation. The IG also ordered the TPO, Bankers Mortgage Group of Woodland Hills, CA, to reimburse the FHA insurance fund $58,704 for the actual loss on one FHA-insured mortgage loan. The IG also recommended that HUD impose fines on Bankers Mortgage for allegedly signing off on false loan information. IG auditors targeted BMG after internal investigators found significant ...

A California operator of an allegedly bogus foreclosure rescue firm has agreed to a $5 million settlement with the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Based on an investigation by HUD’s Office of the Inspector General, the DOJ filed a civil complaint against Terrill Meisinger, focusing on more than 100 properties that were financed through FHA and conventional loans. The complaint alleged that Meisinger contacted individuals facing foreclosure and offered ...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency says its proposed new securitization platform could be used now by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as by private issuers, but it’s also intended to serve a post government-sponsored enterprise marketplace. Last week, the FHFA issued a call for public comment on a white paper outlining its proposed common securitization platform and a model pooling and servicing agreement. Those plans are also included in the agency’s updated strategic plan issued this week. The 31-page strategic plan – which updates a draft issued by the FHFA in February – sets...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issued separate guidance to their mortgage servicers last week designed to continue the conservator-mandated effort to complement the servicing policies of the two government-sponsored enterprises and to develop a consistent framework for assessing servicer performance. The updated servicing policies seek to harmonize compensatory fee structures, servicer violations and remedies, and servicer terminations and transfer of servicing between Fannie and Freddie. Fannie’s and Freddie’s announcements also include...

Rules proposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in August to revamp servicing practices prompted widely varied reactions from servicers, individual consumers and community banks. Servicers largely sought to keep current servicing rules unchanged while borrowers asked for greater protections and community banks requested an exemption from the proposal. The CFPB said the proposed rules are aimed at ending “surprises and runarounds” for borrowers. The proposed rules incorporated a number of provisions included in the national servicing settlement and consent orders between servicers and federal regulators. Some of those provisions were required by the Dodd-Frank Act. Servicers largely suggested that the CFPB should not implement servicing rules beyond those specifically required by the DFA. However, the Consumer Mortgage Coalition, whose members include the servicers complying with the settlement and consent orders, called...

Ocwen Financial is set to become the eighth largest mortgage servicer with its pending acquisition of Homeward Residential, according to an analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance. While the combined servicing portfolio will largely consist of nonprime mortgages, Ocwen is also looking to benefit from Homeward’s relatively new wholesale origination platform, which has produced a significant amount of agency mortgages this year. Ocwen announced last week that it plans to acquire Homeward and its servicing portfolio of more than $77.0 billion for $588 million in cash and $162 million in Ocwen stock. On a combined basis, including subservicing, the two companies serviced $202.0 billion in mortgages as of the end of the second quarter of 2012. “We are...

Investors in vintage non-agency MBS have seen strong returns in recent months, particularly in August. Industry analysts suggest that returns are likely to remain elevated as there are few remaining risks for non-agency MBS and supply is limited. “Despite increased profit taking on this year’s impressive performance, bonds continue to trade well,” according to analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “While demand for non-agency bonds will likely grow as home prices recover, it will not be met with more new supply as is seen in the broader high-yield bond universe. This is a very strong backdrop for further price appreciation.” From the beginning of June through the end of September, pricing on the ABX index that tracks subprime MBS has...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency this week announced a second winning bidder of its pilot program to move GSE real estate-owned properties from money-losing foreclosures to money-making rentals and eventually off the books entirely. The FHFA announced that New York-based Cogsville Group LLC was the winning bidder of 94 Fannie Mae-owned properties as part of the FHFA’s REO pilot initiative. The firm paid $2.1 million for a share in a joint venture with Fannie, resulting in an estimated transaction value to the GSE of $11.8 million or 86.2 percent of the properties’ estimated value, according to the transaction summary.

Declining interest rates forced mortgage bankers to lower the fair market value of their mortgage servicing rights during the second quarter, according to a new analysis of bank call-report data by Inside Mortgage Trends. Banks reported a total of $5.607 trillion of mortgage servicing for others as of the end of June, a 3.1 percent decline from the previous quarter. That represented about 81.8 percent of the total mortgage servicing outstanding that was tied to agency and non-agency ... [Includes one data chart]

In an effort related to the national mortgage servicing settlement, Bank of America announced last week that it has pre-qualified 150,000 borrowers to receive full extinguishments of their second-lien mortgages. Banks have been slow to modify second liens because their performance remains relatively strong even as borrowers struggle with first liens and negative equity. BofA said the full balance of second liens owned and serviced by the bank will be forgiven and the bank’s lien on the corresponding property ...