A federal appeals court in Washington, DC, has overturned a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit accusing the Department of Housing and Urban Development of denying protection for surviving spouses of deceased principal borrowers of reverse mortgages against ejection due to foreclosure. The case, Robert Bennett, et al. v. Shaun Donovan, revealed an apparent inconsistency between HUD regulations and the federal statute that created the FHA’s Home Equity Conversion Mortgage Program. This inconsistency was at the root of the district court’s previous decision to dismiss plaintiffs’ claim for lack of standing, which the ...

Homeowners may seek to stop a non-judicial foreclosure if the lender fails to comply with the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s servicing requirements, according to a California appeals court. In Pfeiffer v. Countrywide Home Loans, the plaintiffs sued to halt foreclosure proceedings that the lender initiated after the FHA mortgage went into defThe complaint alleged that Countrywide failed to provide the borrowers the 30-day advance notice required by the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act or to conduct a face-to-face interview, which HUD requires prior to initiating foreclosure proceedings. In addition to the injunction, the plaintiffs ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is implementing changes to FHA Connection to ensure FHA-approved lenders are providing accurate identification information about their loan officers for better monitoring and supervision. Effective Jan. 28, the FHA will not assign case numbers to lenders if the names and registration numbers of their loan officers under the National Mortgage Licensing System are entered incorrectly into the system. The same requirement applies to lenders registering a new third-party originator (TPO) in the ...

Competition in FHA lending may get a boost following the easing of reporting requirements for insured depository institutions with $500 million or less in total assets. The Department of Housing and Urban Development recently announced a policy change to eliminate a requirement for small supervised lenders and mortgagees to submit internal control and compliance reports under the FHA’s interim financial reporting rules. Independent mortgage companies, regardless of their asset size, are not covered by the exemption. A supervised lender or mortgagee is a financial institution that is a member of ...

Residential Capital, a former subsidiary of Ally and currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, has asked the court for permission to sell an estimated $130 million in FHA-insured mortgage loans. ResCap made the request in a recent filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, which monitors and approves all of the beleaguered company’s activities and requests during bankruptcy. According to the company, its unsecured creditors have signed off on the prospective sale of the FHA loans although the court would still have to approve the request during a scheduled hearing on Jan. 16. ResCap sought bankruptcy protection on ...

Excluding Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loans, total FHA originations topped $21 billion in November, which was down 7.7 percent from October but up a substantial 44.4 percent from the same period a year ago, an Inside FHA Lending analysis of government data shows. Accounting for 99.3 percent of FHA originations, insured fixed-rate mortgages were the flavor of the month. Completed purchase money mortgages accounted for 47.1 percent of the month’s activity while refinancing comprised 52.9 percent. FHA data also showed that nearly 80 percent of FHA endorsements were for ... [1 chart]

The Department of Housing and Urban Development and Bank of America have announced an agreement to settle a claim that BofA refused to provide mortgage financing to a lesbian couple. BofA allegedly violated a HUD rule prohibiting lenders from basing borrowers’ eligibility for an FHA-insured loan on their sexual orientation, gender identity or marital status. The new “equal-access” rule applies in all FHA programs. The enforcement action is HUD’s first against a lender involving the equal-access rule. BofA agreed to pay a $7,500 fine, a middling sum compared to ...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this week spread a huge safety net under the agency mortgage market, ruling that loans deemed suitable for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the FHA and the Veterans Administration will be “qualified mortgages” that provide strong protection against litigation for mortgage lenders. The CFPB’s long-awaited ability-to-repay final rule provides a safe harbor for loans that meet its QM definition and also are not considered “higher-priced mortgages” under an older Truth in Lending Act regulation promulgated by the Federal Reserve back in 2008. That rule classifies first mortgages as higher-priced if the annual percentage rate exceeds the average offered rate for comparable loans by 1.5 percentage points or more. Generally, the CFPB final rule defines...

Eighteen Republicans gave Carol Galante the benefit of the doubt by helping to confirm her nomination as FHA Commissioner on a 69-24 vote after she promised a series of changes for the beleaguered FHA program. Galante, who had been serving as acting FHA commissioner, garnered enough Republican support to surpass the 60 votes needed to secure Senate approval of her nomination in late December. President Obama nominated her in June 2011 to replace FHA Commissioner David Stevens. In December 2011, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs approved...

As more names are thrown into the “Who Will Succeed DeMarco at FHFA” sweepstakes, the question increasingly being is asked is this: which candidate will placate Congressional Republicans? Republicans, so far, have held united against allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to write down the principal on underwater mortgages as a loan modification tool. Edward DeMarco, the acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, of course, has shot down the idea numerous times.