The Department of Veterans Affairs has spelled out steps for disputing and resolving audit findings with the agency. The VA Home Loan Guaranty program has a policy-resolution protocol in place to increase both consistency among the VA regional loan centers (RLC) and responsiveness to lender inquiries. In seeking to resolve an audit dispute with an RLC, the lender should first consult the VA Lender’s Handbook before contacting the VA. Lenders also are encouraged to check with colleagues who might be familiar with issues underlying the dispute. The lender should contact the RLC with jurisdiction for an official response to case-specific questions. When disputing an audit finding or a deficiency letter, the lender should contact the loan specialist who conducted the audit. If, after communicating with the loan specialist, the dispute remains unresolved, the lender should take its concern to ...
Freedom Mortgage Corp. is now ready to compete full time with the big boys in the rural housing market with its recent purchase of JPMorgan Chase’s rural housing business. The price of the deal was not disclosed. Freedom Mortgage’s newly acquired USDA origination platform kicked into gear on July 1, primed to serve rural-housing borrowers through its correspondent channel. Overall, the purchase would catapult the New Jersey-based nonbank to becoming the leading seller of USDA rural housing loans to Ginnie Mae. Chase Home Finance led all other USDA mortgage lenders in the first quarter of 2016 with $1.2 billion in total originations, which is 31.5 percent of all USDA-backed loans produced during the period. Freedom Mortgage was the largest VA lender and the second largest FHA lender in 2015. The acquisition of Chase’s USDA business would make Freedom the second largest, if not the ...
CA Legislature Poised to Pass Protections for Widowed Homeowners. The California legislature is a step away from enacting legislation that would extend existing foreclosure protections in the state Homeowners Bill of Rights (HBOR) to widows, widowers and other heirs of deceased homeowners. The legislature passed the HBOR in 2012 to provide due process protections to homeowners and establish rules and procedures for communication between servicers and borrowers regarding options to avoid foreclosure. However, the bill’s protections did not extend to surviving spouses and successors-in-interest who may wish to continue paying the mortgage loan but could not assume the loan or afford the payment with the loss of the deceased homeowner’s income. Surviving family members may then seek a loan assumption or modification, only to be refused by the servicer because their names are not on the ...
Capital requirements that are set to take effect in 2018 for bank holdings of mortgage servicing rights won’t prompt changes to servicing activities or portfolios at most banks, according to a new analysis by federal regulators. The report by four federal banking regulators on the effect of capital rules on MSR assets was prompted by the omnibus spending bill that was signed into law in late 2015. The banking regulators examined a number of MSR trends and determined that the current regulatory course is sufficient. At the start of 2018, capital requirements for banks will get...
The J.G. Wentworth Company is in the process of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, sparking rumors that its mortgage subsidiary – a $1.5 billion-a-year originator – might find itself on the auction block. For now, the parent company is putting a good face on the delisting and said its mortgage division, J.G. Wentworth Home Lending, had a strong first quarter. A spokeswoman for the parent did not address a possible sale of the lender in an email exchange with Inside Mortgage Finance. In the first quarter of 2016, J.G. Wentworth lost...
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