The Department of Veterans Affairs is urging VA lenders, borrowers and other participants in its loan guaranty program to adopt recommended standards, equipment and activities to reduce water and energy usage and to ease the impact of natural disasters. The VA has recommended wind-hazard standards, resilient building and retrofitting standards, a water- and energy-saving program, and property-and-energy conservation strategies to help VA borrowers protect their homes against storms, flooding, earthquakes and other calamities. VA made clear it allows, but does not require, any of the recommended standards, strategies or equipment. The programs are strictly voluntary, it said. The agency noted the increasing incidence of extreme weather events, earthquakes and flooding, which makes planning and building in the most resilient and economically feasible ways all the ...
The Department of Veterans Affairs adopted without change its interim final rule increasing the maximum amount of civil fines it can assess on lenders and other offenders for violations of agency loan-guaranty rules and regulations. Under the interim final rule VA issued for comment back in June, maximum civil monetary penalties would increase from $10,000 to $21,563 for false loan-guaranty certifications. Civil fines for fraudulent claims or statements in any VA program would increase from $5,500 to $10,781. The VA published the interim final rule on June 22, 2016, to implement the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 and to improve the effectiveness of civil fines and maintain their deterrent effect. The new penalty amounts became ...
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s integrated disclosure rule has now been in effect for a full year, and industry officials hope the potholes and speedbumps in the TRID road will continue to smooth out. Former CFPB official Benjamin Olson, now a partner with the BuckleySandler law firm in Washington, DC, noted that the first year of the TRID rule has been eventful. “In its early stages, the TRID rule proved to be far more disruptive than many envisioned, largely because of extraordinarily high rates of real and perceived errors and pervasive uncertainty over the liability associated with those errors,” he told Inside Mortgage Finance. Over time, the mortgage industry has been...
Many participants in the mortgage industry remain concerned that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau did not address additional cure provisions in its proposed rulemaking to clarify the integrated consumer disclosure known as TRID. Lenders would love to see the bureau respond to these concerns when it finalizes its so-called TRID 2.0 rule. But that might not happen without Congress getting involved. During a webinar last week sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance, some attendees inquired...
Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data released last week show a somewhat more efficient mortgage market in 2015 as fewer loan applications were declined and more turned into originated loans. Lenders processed $2.576 trillion in mortgage applications filed in 2015, converting them into $1.651 trillion in purchase and refinance originations, a 32.9 percent increase from the previous year. Some 56.5 percent of loan apps turned into closed loans, up from 53.8 percent in 2014, and the overall denial rate fell 2.9 points to 20.1 percent. Most of last year’s origination surge came...[Includes one data table]
In the new SEC filing, PHH notes: “Merrill Lynch originations will contribute approximately $45 million of pre-tax earnings for fiscal year 2016 based on the company’s estimate of Merrill Lynch loan closing volume for 2016.”
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