The Department of Veterans Affairs has issued new guidance clarifying how VA lenders should comply with the disclosure requirements of the new TRID rule. TRID, which stands for Truth in Lending Act-Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosures, was adopted in final form by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Oct. 3, 2015. Specifically, TRID establishes new requirements regarding mortgage disclosure forms, which lenders must use for all home loans. Lenders are required to itemize the services and fees they charge to borrowers on the TRID disclosure forms, instead of on the HUD-1 closing statement, in connection with a loan application to purchase or refinance an existing mortgage. However, switching from the HUD-1 to the TRID form has caused uncertainty among VA lenders as to how to complete the new forms. VA’s TRID guidance lays out ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has revised guidance to lenders for calculating monthly student-loan payments for debt-to-income ratio purposes. The change is aimed at helping more borrowers with student-loan obligations to qualify for an FHA-insured mortgage. Currently, the FHA requires lenders to calculate a monthly payment for deferred student loans based on 2.0 percent of the outstanding balance, and include it in the borrower’s DTI for qualifying purposes. The disadvantage of the current method of calculation is that it makes it harder for the borrower to qualify for an FHA loan, according to Marc Savitt, president of The Mortgage Center, an exclusively FHA/VA lender in Martinsburg, WV. Under the revised guidance, regardless of the borrower’s payment status, the lender must use: (a) the greater of 1.0 percent (a 50 percent reduction from the current 2.0 percent) of the ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has issued a notice to establish a computer-matching program between FHA and the VA that would enable the two agencies to prescreen mortgage applicants. The notice was published in the April 15 Federal Register. The computer-matching program would allow HUD to incorporate VA debtor files into the department’s Credit Alert Verification Reporting System (CAVRS). Consequently, both the FHA and VA would be able to prescreen loan applicants and identify who is delinquent or in default on a federally guaranteed mortgage loan. The use of CAVRS would allow HUD to monitor its FHA programs better and prevent the extension of credit to individuals who are delinquent or in default on their obligations to HUD and other federal agencies. Meanwhile, VA expects to achieve savings through risk reduction and ...

Freedom Mortgage Corp. has agreed to pay the federal government $113 million to resolve alleged violations of the federal False Claims Act and FHA requirements in connection with the origination of FHA-insured single-family mortgages. The April 15 settlement agreement between the New Jersey-based mortgage lender and the Department of Justice comes in the wake of a record $1.2 billion settlement between DOJ and Wells Fargo, which earlier admitted to false certification of defective mortgages for FHA insurance and failure to file timely reports on several thousand loans that were materially defective or badly underwritten. Like Wells Fargo, Freedom Mortgage failed...

Borrowers saddled with student loan debt now have a better chance of qualifying for an FHA mortgage, thanks to a recent change in the way lenders factor such payments in the calculation of a borrower’s debt-to-income ratio. Under newly revised guidance announced by the FHA recently, lenders may apply the same calculation criteria used in the mortgage industry regardless of the type of student loan-payment plan (such as income-based payment plans) or a deferred-payment plan. Currently, there are...

More loans securitized by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae are carrying mortgage insurance, either private MI or coverage through government-insured programs, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of mortgage-backed securities data. The trend toward more insured loans has been gradual over the past two years. In 2014, purchase-money loans with no mortgage insurance accounted for 39.9 percent of new MBS issued by ... [Includes one data chart]

The flow of home loans covered by private mortgage insurance into new Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities fell by 11.5 percent during the first quarter of 2016, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis and ranking. That decline mirrored the 11.6 percent drop in purchase-mortgage securitization from the fourth quarter by the two government-sponsored enterprises. A slight uptick in refinance activity partly offset the slide in purchase-mortgage business. Private MIs do...[Includes two data tables]

Wells Fargo last week reached an agreement to pay $1.2 billion to the federal government to resolve certification and reporting violations in connection with FHA-insured loans. The settlement is the largest recovery for loan-origination violations in FHA history, according to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro. The April 8 court filing details an agreement in principle, which Wells Fargo announced in February, that resolves not only a pending lawsuit filed by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, but also a number of potential claims dating as far back as 15 years in some cases, according to a statement issued by Wells Fargo. According to the settlement, Wells Fargo “admitted...

Ginnie Mae issued $93.41 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during the first three months of 2016, an 8.6 percent drop from the previous quarter, according to a new Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of loan-level MBS data, excluding FHA reverse-mortgage activity. Early 2016 was the slowest market in a year for Ginnie MBS production, though it still was stronger than most of the agency’s pre-2015 business. And issuance in the first quarter of 2016 was 17.0 percent ahead of the volume produced during the same period last year. The soft spot in the first quarter was FHA lending, especially purchase-mortgage activity. Issuers delivered $54.44 billion of FHA loans into Ginnie MBS during the period, a 12.1 percent drop from the fourth quarter, including a 15.0 percent decline in FHA purchase mortgages. Securitization of VA loans fell by a ... [4 charts].

Approximately 300 FHA lenders are seeing their recertifications held up because they failed to report in a timely manner events or changes that may affect their eligibility to participate in FHA programs.Delays are occurring because lenders have failed to notify the FHA of material events as soon as they have occurred and waited until the annual recertification to report them, according to industry sources. Under rules of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a notice of material event alerts the agency to a significant change to the information provided by the lender at application that may affect its status as an FHA-approved lender. The department strongly encourages lenders to notify FHA within 10 days of the event to prevent delays during the annual recertification. Each FHA lender must complete the annual recertification process in order to retain its FHA approval. Lenders must ...