California Attorney General Kamala Harris this week announced a new mortgage-fraud investigating force to monitor and prosecute deviations from the mortgage processes required by law. The new group, called the California Attorney General’s Mortgage Fraud Strike Force, will be composed of attorneys and investigators from the state Department of Justice (both civil and criminal), and will oversee processes such as mortgage loan origination and the way mortgage-backed securities are marketed to investors. “We will work to safeguard the homeowner at every step of the process – from origination of a loan to its securitization – and we will...

Florida. The state legislature recently passed SB 1613, which allows licensed loan originators to work as contract loan processors or in-house loan processors, but includes in-house loan processors in certain disciplinary provisions...

There is "not even a whiff of a hint of a compromise" between Congressional Republicans and President Obama and his fellow Democrats in Congress over the possible appointment of Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren to be director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to some industry insiders...

Congressional Republicans are doing just about everything they can- short of calling on U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 - to weaken, throttle, starve or deep-six the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau before it gets up to full speed...

A handful of Congressional Democrats aren't letting the prospect that legislation they are sponsoring may go nowhere in committee keep them from trying to toughen the terms of the regulatory debate over national servicer standards...

Consumer advocates called on Congress to extend national mortgage servicing standards to all servicers, including those of government-insured home loans. Testifying before the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation and Community Development recently, Diane Thompson, of counsel to the National Consumer Law Center, said loans made by the FHA, the VA and the Rural Housing Services are generally aimed at ...

Republican members of the House Financial Services Committee are warming up another set of bills designed to "tie the hands" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Unveiled last week, the seven bills affecting the operations of the government-sponsored enterprises while they remain in conservatorship will be discussed during a hearing next week in the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and GSEs. "These seven bills were carefully designed to tie the hands of Fannie and Freddie so that they are no longer a drag on American taxpayers, a threat to our economic security and an impediment to private market growth and...

Non-agency mortgage-backed security investors appear to be unwilling to support new non-agency MBS issuance until reforms are implemented for second-liens. Nancy Mueller Handal, a managing director at MetLife, said potential non-agency investors are looking for an alignment of issuer, investor and servicer interests. "A big piece of this comes down to the fact that servicers have been managing their second liens in portfolio to the detriment of the first lien," she said at a discussion this week hosted by the American Securitization Forum. Second liens became a major focus of a hearing on national servicing standards last week at...

High-touch servicer Nationstar Mortgage announced this week that it plans to raise up to $400.0 million via an initial public offering. The servicer - owned by Fortress Investment Group - primarily focuses on defaulted agency mortgages. Nationstar serviced a $64.2 billion portfolio as of the end of 2010, with subprime mortgages accounting for a 14.6 percent share. Reps. Gary Miller, R-CA and Brad Sherman, D-CA, recently introduced legislation to permanently increase the conforming loan limits. Few analysts believe that H.R. 1754, "the Preserving Equal Access to Mortgage Finance Programs Act," will gain much traction considering...

Can I afford this mortgage, and can I get a better deal somewhere else? Those are the two questions the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau wants borrowers to be able to answer when it is finished producing a new mortgage disclosure form that combines and would ultimately replace those required under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. This week, the CFPB released two alternate prototypes for industry and public review and comment, part of its Know Before You Owe project. The goal is to create a single, simpler form that makes the costs and risks of the loan clear and allows consumers to...