Ocwen Financial – its financial future hanging in the balance – this week filed court documents challenging the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which late last week brought civil charges against the $200 billion servicer. Ocwen is hardly new to regulatory scrutiny, but this time around the situation is different. Just when it thought it had cleaned up its act on servicing residential borrowers, it was sued by the CFPB and smacked with cease-and-desist orders from at least 24 states. Those orders – which the company is already challenging in court – prevent...

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, last week released a detailed discussion draft of his pending revised Financial CHOICE Act that would extensively revise the mortgage regulatory landscape. Issues of interest to the mortgage industry include manufactured housing, the definition of points and fees, a qualified-mortgage safe harbor for loans held in portfolio, regulatory relief for community banks, transitional licensing for loan originators, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act records maintenance and disclosure requirements, and HMDA data privacy. There would be some drastic changes made to the CFPB, too, most notably the elimination of its rulemaking, supervisory and enforcement authority and its market monitoring functions and turning it into a law enforcement agency. Other CFPB-related changes include: Changing the name ...

The Conference of State Bank Supervisors urged the leadership of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee to enact legislation that would grant qualified-mortgage status under the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule for loans held in portfolio, as part of a broader set of proposals to stimulate economic growth. The CSBS was one of a number of groups that responded to an invitation by the banking committee to provide ideas for stimulating economic activity. “State regulators have long supported a flexible approach to underwriting for institutions that retain mortgages in portfolio because interests are inherently aligned between consumers and lenders that retain 100 percent of the risk of default,” said the CSBS. “One solution that would tailor the requirement to the ...

The Mortgage Bankers Association is sticking with its proposal to keep Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac alive, but with new charters, while inviting other players to compete with the two giants in the securitization of conventional mortgages. The trade group this week proposed a utility-like model for the re-christened government-sponsored enterprises. They would inherit the personnel and systems the GSEs now have, but become limited-purpose, publicly owned securitization businesses under tight government regulation. Other entities could apply...

Freddie Mac introduced a curriculum to help potential manufactured homebuyers in Kentucky get a mortgage and is now looking to increase lender participation in the program. The GSE partnered with Next Step Network, a housing intermediary based in Louisville, and three nonprofit housing counseling agencies to create the online education curriculum aimed at better preparing Kentucky homebuyers with blemished credit histories. Since the initiative was rolled out...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency said it increased the number of minority and women-owned businesses it awarded contracts to in 2016. But several obstacles make expanding its business with MWOBs complicated. The agency recently released its annual report to Congress, which details initiatives and accomplishments during the year to increase diversity and inclusion. This year’s report also mentioned a diversity and inclusion program to examine the same practices within Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks. In 2016, the FHFA expanded...

The Structured Finance Industry Group is worried that the Credit Competition Score Act of 2017 could result in an excessive number of approaches to credit scoring. Rep. Ed Royce, R-CA, introduced H.R. 898 in February with Reps. Kyrsten Sinema, D-AZ, and Terri Sewell, D-AL. The bill lets...

Most of the discussion about lender relief from the compliance burdens under the Dodd-Frank Act has revolved around the Financial CHOICE Act sponsored by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX. But the wheels are starting to move in the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, where Chairman Mike Crapo, R-ID, has begun receiving input from industry trade groups about the kind of changes they would like to see. The lion’s share of the industry’s concerns have to do with the mortgage rules promulgated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, whether it’s the integrated disclosure rule, the ability-to-repay rule or the penchant the bureau seems to have for bypassing the public rulemaking process through the use of consent orders. The Mortgage Bankers Association urged...

Industry experts are concerned that significantly raising the standard federal income-tax deduction could make the mortgage-interest deduction less valuable and hurt the housing market. The Republican “blueprint” for a massive overhaul of federal income taxes proposes boosting the standard deduction from $12,600 to $24,000 for joint filers. This could mean fewer taxpayers would itemize their deductions and claim the MID. The Community Home Lenders Association opposes...

Private capital needs to return to the mortgage market to make the market less dependent on taxpayers, according to JPMorgan Chase. The company dedicated portions of its latest annual report to call for a number of changes that could increase non-agency lending. According to Chase, a “healthy” non-agency mortgage-backed security market hasn’t resumed eight years after the financial crisis because housing finance reform and other securitization standards ...