Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Company chalked one up in the win column in some litigation it’s having with Bank of America over MGIC’s decision to rescind flow-policy coverage of 1,400 or so mortgages that were originated by Countrywide between 2006 and 2008...
Jurisprudence related to Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems continues to evolve, but a majority of courts are validating the role MERS plays in the nation’s mortgage finance system, according to a new analysis of recent cases by law firm K&L Gates...
The industry’s foreclosure debacle – including the validity of the transfer of mortgages and the role of MERS – has raised a number of critical public policy questions that industry leaders and policymakers will need to resolve if the market and the industry are to return to a fully functioning form once again, a leading industry legal expert told mortgage compliance officials recently...
The Treasury Department withheld payments to Home Affordable Modification servicers for the first time last week. The delay in incentive payments to three major servicers was due to poor handling of non-agency mortgages. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase Bank and Wells Fargo Bank will not receive HAMP incentive payments until the Treasury determines that the servicers have made improvements. Ocwen Loan Servicing was also determined to be “in need of substantial improvement” but the servicer received a pass because of issues related to...[includes one data chart]
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has quietly announced preparations for the termination of FHA HOPE for Homeowners, a program that promised more than it could deliver. In a mortgagee letter, HUD laid out instructions on how to process cases during the program’s phase-out period. Launched in September 2008 to assist homeowners at risk of foreclosure, the H4H program will end on Sept. 30, 2011. July 29 is the last day to obtain a new H4H case number for lenders seeking to refinance borrowers into H4H loans after this date, while July 16 is the deadline ...
Ginnie Mae has raised the servicing fee compensation for its Home Equity Conversion Mortgage-Backed Securities (HMBS) program. Currently issuers receive either a flat 6-to-75 basis points monthly servicing fee or a 25-75 bps servicing fee based on a portion of the mortgage interest rate. Effective for HMBS with an issue date on or after July 1, 2011, issuers must select a servicing fee margin of at least 36 bps and not exceeding ...
Top servicers flagged for their faulty foreclosure practices will have an extra month to submit their mitigation plans, although federal regulators continue to bear down on the industry and are starting to withhold loss mitigation incentive payments from some companies. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision this week said they will give 12 servicers subject to consent orders extra time to submit “comprehensive action plans” that detail the financial resources the bank will commit to...
The supply of home mortgage debt fell again in the first quarter of 2011 despite an increase in agency servicing, according to an Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of new data released by the Federal Reserve. Outstanding home mortgage debt declined to $10.458 trillion as of the end of March, down 0.7 percent from the end of 2010. That marked the 12th consecutive quarterly decline in the supply of mortgage servicing and took the market back to a level not seen since the end of 2006. Since peaking in the first quarter of 2008, the volume of home mortgage debt outstanding has...[includes two data charts]
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s home retention activity declined for the most part during the first quarter, according to the latest Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Foreclosure Prevention and Refinance Report.Total home retention efforts dropped to 143,977 during the first three months of the year, down 20 percent from the fourth quarter, while loan modifications in the period also declined to 86,201, down 28 percent.
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