The CFPB filed a lawsuit in a federal district court last week against Frederick J. Hanna & Associates, based in Marietta, GA, and its three principal partners – Frederick J. Hanna, Joseph Cooling, and Robert Winter – accusing them of operating a debt-collection lawsuit mill that used illegal tactics to intimidate consumers into paying debts they may not owe. “The CFPB alleges that the firm operates like a factory, producing hundreds of thousands of debt- collection lawsuits against consumers on behalf of its clients, which mainly include banks, debt buyers and major credit card issuers,” the bureau said. Between 2009 and 2013, the firm filed more than 350,000 debt-collection lawsuits in Georgia alone, according to the CFPB. The bureau further alleged the ...
A new analysis by Inside the CFPB found that consumer complaints to the bureau about their mortgages fell sharply in the second quarter, which likely reflects a continued stabilization in the housing and mortgage markets. In 15 out of 16 metrics tracked, customer gripes declined by double digits, with the remaining metric showing only a modest rise year-over-year. And in terms of the sole metric that showed a slight rise – a 3.6 percent increase in criticisms about mortgage servicing year over year – even there the data show a double-digit improvement (20.6 percent) from the first quarter of 2014 to the second.However, upon closer examination, the data also reveal that the double-digit rates of decline in consumer complaints slowed during ...
Over five years, Fannie and Freddie would be wound down, but would be allowed to be sold and recapitalized as private entities with different business plans.
As the Securities and Exchange Commission continues to consider how to reform the rating process for structured finance transactions, including non-agency MBS, industry analysts affiliated with the Brookings Institution suggested that the fix doesn’t require altering the issuer-pay model that has been in place for more than 40 years. Instead, the SEC should help establish transparent, numerical benchmarks, according to two industry participants, shifting away from the current system of letter-based ratings that are also used for corporate debt and sovereign debt. Ann Rutledge, a founding principal at R&R Consulting, a credit rating service, and Robert Litan, a nonresident senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, detailed their proposal in an economic study recently published by Brookings. “Securities that are rated only in an ordinal fashion – in order of likelihood of default – can be...
Industry reaction to the FHFA IG report on nonbank and small lender risk was swift. Maybe Fannie Mae is better off having Countrywide as its biggest customer again?
SunTrust Banks settled criminal allegations this month relating to activity under the Home Affordable Modification Program. The $320 million settlement marked the first time a HAMP servicer paid a monetary penalty under the program. To this point, penalties for violations of HAMP guidelines have been relatively lenient, with the harshest maneuver being a temporary stop in incentive payments from the program. However, an investigation led by ...
Mortgages with 620-679 credit scores accounted for more than half of FHA’s mortgage insurance business in the first quarter of 2014, up from 42.0 percent a year ago, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s latest quarterly report to Congress on the state of the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. Data showed FHA-insured mortgages in the 620-679 credit score range, a band typically identified with borrowers with slightly tainted credit, comprised 51.1 percent of new endorsements in the first quarter. This was up from 50.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013. FHA endorsements in the 620-plus category started trending upward in the first quarter of 2011, while endorsements in the 720-850 credit score range began a slow decline during the same period. The distribution of borrower credit scores continued the migration seen in previous quarters, though at a ...
JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jaime Dimon this week warned that the investment bank may rethink its FHA business without some type of safe harbor to shield it from potential future liabilities arising from the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act and the False Claims Act. In February this year, JPMorgan agreed to pay $614 million to the federal government to settle allegations that it falsely certified poorly underwritten loans for FHA endorsement, causing massive losses to taxpayers in paid claims. Dimon lashed out at the government during a telephone briefing on the company’s second-quarter 2014 earnings report. He said JPMorgan lost a tremendous amount of money over what the government claimed was fraud but was in fact a “commercial dispute” between FHA and the bank. “We collected $600 million in insurance, the [government] disputed $200 million [alleging] it was fraud ...
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