Housing finance reform – including a potential liquidation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – is moving along in the Senate with one major hurdle looming in the background: Democrats, for the most part, don’t want anything to do with it.

The Department of Justice has directed its prosecutors to seriously consider dismissing meritless False Claims Act complaints from whistleblowers if they do not serve the government’s interests and help defendants, including mortgage lenders, avoid lengthy and costly frivolous lawsuits.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told members of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs this week that he’s committed to housing-finance reform, wants to maintain the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and get more private capital back into the housing market.

President Trump this week signed a short-term spending bill that would keep the government operating until Feb. 8, 2018. The bill ended a three-day shutdown after the previous spending authority for most of the government expired at midnight on Jan. 19. However, the threat of another shutdown looms. FHA and Ginnie Mae both had contingency plans in place in case the short-lived shutdown dragged on, as it had in 2013. That event lasted for 16 days, at a loss of $1.6 billion a day to the federal government. Under FHA’s emergency plan, the agency would continue to endorse new single-family forward mortgages, but not Home Equity Conversion Mortgages and Title I loans. Ginnie would reduce staffing to essential personnel but continue its secondary market operations. It would continue to remit timely payment of principal and interest to investors, grant commitment authority and support issuance of ...

Legislation that would define loans held in portfolio by smaller banks as qualified mortgages garnered unanimous support at a markup in the House Financial Services Committee last week. H.R. 2226, the Portfolio Lending and Mortgage Access Act, was approved on a 55-0 vote. The bill has been kicking around in Congress for years and was modified at the markup to help win support in the Senate. Rep. Andy Barr, R-KY, introduced the legislation. He said it will “expand access to ...

The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee this week continued to work on housing-finance reform legislation, with the hope that a bipartisan bill can still be cobbled together in a dysfunctional Congress. As for passage this year, that’s a different matter.

The Treasury Department appears to be in agreement with the Federal Housing Finance Agency on objectives for a post-conservatorship housing-finance system, which includes preserving the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and competition in the secondary market.

A deduction included in the recently enacted Tax Cuts and Jobs Act aimed at small businesses could apply to mortgage banking companies, according to certain industry analysts. The tax law was written to limit the deduction for income from financial services activities, but there’s enough ambiguity at the moment for some accounting firms to see a way for lenders to take the deduction.

While the House Financial Services Committee was busy last week passing a handful of mortgage-related bills, the full House passed legislation that would eliminate additional Home Mortgage Disclosure Act reporting requirements for smaller banks and credit unions as well as nonbanks.

The Mortgage Bankers Association and the American Land Title Association have joined forces to produce a model piece of legislation to help standardize the process of online notarizations.