Top Democrats on Capitol Hill are peeved that the Justice Department is not making the prosecution of mortgage lender and servicer abuses much of a priority, and they are pressing Attorney General Eric Holder for a meeting to discuss what to do about it. Their ire was raised by a recent report from the DOJ’s Inspector General that found, among other things, that the department had not prioritized the investigation of mortgage fraud and that it reported unreliable, inflated statistics about the scope of its prosecutorial efforts. In a letter to the DOJ, Reps. Elijah Cummings, D-MD, and Maxine Waters, D-CA, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, focused...

The House Financial Services Committee late last week passed bipartisan legislation that would provide an alternate way of defining “rural” for purposes of the CFPB’s qualified mortgage standard so a bank could make its case to the bureau as to why a jurisdiction should be fit into that category. H.R. 2672 would direct the CFPB to establish an application process under which a person who lives or does business in a state may apply to have an area designated as a rural area for the purpose of exempting certain loans from the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule if that area has not already been designated as such by the bureau.

Bipartisan legislation in the Senate to reform the government-sponsored enterprises would maintain the high-cost conforming loan limits, according to a summary of the draft bill released this week. The bill signals a shift as other GSE reform efforts in Congress have contemplated a gradual reduction of high-cost conforming loan limits. Leaders of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs announced this week that they reached an agreement on what will be included ...

More lenders have expressed concern about a provision in the proposed FY 2015 federal budget seeking congressional authority to collect $30 million to help improve and strengthen FHA quality assurance reviews. Under the president’s budget proposal, FHA would collect an “administrative fee” from FHA lenders to implement the quality assurance (QA) changes needed to provide a clearer, more transparent picture of enforcement going forward. The improvements are meant to provide lenders not only information about early payment default or other kinds of default characteristics through loan sampling but also an accurate snapshot of their “manufacturing risk,” which is the risk that a loan is not underwritten properly. “The purpose is for lenders to have the information six to nine months after they have originated the loan as opposed to ...

Penalties in legislation that would restrict the use of eminent domain to resolve foreclosure problems could cripple state and local governments financially and provide no relief to property owners, warned the bill’s critics. H.R. 1944, the Private Rights Protection Act, would prohibit city and county governments that get federal funding for economic development from using their eminent domain powers to seize underwater mortgage notes from investors and unilaterally restructure the loans before selling them to other investors. Violators would be ineligible for federal economic development funds for two fiscal years following a court’s finding of guilt. The bill also provides the attorney general with broader enforcement authority. The necessity for legislation arose in the wake of efforts last year by certain municipalities in California to ...

The Democrat and Republican heads of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee this week finally announced an agreement on comprehensive housing finance reform legislation but the release of a detailed bill for public consumption remains forthcoming. For now, it’s impossible to tell how the agreement reached by Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Ranking Member Mike Crapo, R-ID, is any different than the bipartisan bill introduced early last year by Sens. Bob Corker, R-TN, and Mark Warner, D-VA. Johnson and Crapo are expected to release draft legislative language later this week, and move to a markup “in the coming weeks.” Like Corker-Warner, the Johnson-Crapo agreement includes...

Although investors and participants initially showed a great deal of interest in the fledgling market for bonds backed by single-family rental properties, rating agencies are starting to take a closer look at the business and don’t like everything they see. “Rising U.S. home prices have pushed down rental yields in many single-family rental markets, a trend that will likely discourage some institutional investors from buying distressed properties and converting them into rental units,” according to a recent report from Moody’s Investor Service. The rating agency adds...

Legislation that would block implementation of premium rate increases in the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act passed the House of Representatives this week by a bipartisan 306 to 91 vote. The passage of H.R. 3370, the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2013, paves the way for both the House and the Senate to iron out the differences between their bills in conference. The Senate passed its version on Jan. 30. H.R. 3370 would reduce...

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives, with the help of 10 renegade Democrats, voted last week to scale back some of the power and independence of the CFPB. As previously reported, H.R. 3193, the Consumer Financial Freedom and Washington Accountability Act, sponsored by Rep. Sean Duffy, R-WI, would replace the single CFPB director with a five-member, bipartisan commission appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The goal here is "to ensure that a diversity of viewpoints informs the CFPB's regulatory and enforcement agenda, and to conform the CFPB's governance to that of other federal agencies charged with consumer or investor protection," according to the GOP contingent on the House Financial Services Committee.

The House of Representatives this week is expected to vote on the amended version of H.R. 3370, the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act, which would provide comprehensive reform and longer-term relief from skyrocketing premiums in the National Flood Insurance Program. But there is a possibility that the vote could take place next week as Republicans and Democrats continued to negotiate on proposed changes and further protection for homeowners who face hefty rate increases caused by the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012, sources said. Congress passed the act to address the NFIP's solvency problems. Authored by Reps. Michael Grimm, R-NY, and Bill Cassidy, R-LA, H.R. 3370 builds...