“There are more cases on the way,” said Benjamin Olson, an attorney with Buckley Sandler.

If you thought the CFPB was finished with the mortgage closing process when it issued its integrated disclosure rulemaking under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and the Truth in Lending Act, think again. The bureau also sought public input on the “pain points” associated with getting a new mortgage, and based on the comments received to date, the agency has identified 1,480 such spots, according to Brian Webster, the originations program manager for mortgage markets at the CFPB.So last week, in a high profile public forum attended by officials of other housing-related federal agencies as well as industry representatives and consumer advocates, the bureau announced it would roll out later this year a voluntary, three-month e-Closing pilot project...

As part of the CFPB’s public forum last week during which the agency announced its forthcoming eClosing pilot project, the bureau also issued guidelines that articulate the minimum functionalities required of potential participants and spell out the features the CFPB wants to test in the pilot. To join the bureau’s pilot on electronic closings, each participant must currently have a system that meets minimal technical capabilities and requirements, as demonstrated by specific features and functionalities. “The CFPB created these minimum requirements to ensure that the pilot program is focused on the specific features and consumer outcomes that the bureau is seeking to evaluate,” the agency said.First, a pilot participant must have an eClosing solution with the ability to store...

Who gave up market share to nonbank lenders? The biggest decline was among banks with over $1 trillion in assets: JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup.

Over the past six months, CashCall has laid off several hundred workers, but continues to advertise in local media markets in Southern California.

Officials at FHA and Ginnie Mae are eager to jump on board and reinvigorate their efforts concerning e-mortgages.

At one shop based in the Midwest there’s unconfirmed talk of loan officers who haven’t been paid for months, unpaid leases and top executives who were on vacation as volumes collapsed.

A number of lenders have loosened their underwriting standards on non-agency products in recent months in an effort to boost originations as demand for refinances plummets. One of the boldest moves was taken by TD Bank, which this week announced a portfolio loan that has a downpayment requirement as low as 3 percent. The loan is part of the lender’s Right Step mortgage program which features low downpayment loans without private mortgage insurance ...

Ginnie Mae has held up for several weeks an $8 billion sale of servicing rights from Bank of America to a nonbank because of missing documents on government-backed mortgages. Ted Tozer, president of the agency, confirmed the delay in approvals to Inside FHA Lending, but declined to name the nonbank on the buy-side of the transaction. However, sources familiar with the deal identified the counter-party as PennyMac. BofA and PennyMac would not comment. Once the missing documents are located and placed in the proper files, the deal will move forward, said Tozer. Tozer noted that that in the past the agency did not lose sleep over large MSR transfers because up until three years ago the nation’s megabanks were buyers of MSRs. “We knew they had the financial strength to make the P&I [principal and interest] payments” to the MBS investors, he said. But with nonbank servicers, such as Green Tree, Nationstar Mortgage, Ocwen Financial as well as PennyMac, rapidly growing their portfolios, the agency is ...

Wells Fargo has expanded its acceptance of electronic signatures on FHA mortgage-related documents to correspondent lenders – a move that could spur other lenders to consider a similar shift as purchase originations rise. Details of the expansion are available in Wells Fargo current Seller Guide. However, access is restricted to correspondent lenders because the guide contains proprietary information, according to a company spokesman. DocuSign, whose Digitized Transaction Management (DTM) platform is being used by Wells Fargo and other financial services clients, said the expansion follows FHA’s announcement earlier this year of acceptance of e-signatures on all single-family origination and servicing/loss mitigation documents, FHA claims and real estate-owned sales contracts, with the exception of notes. The FHA announcement builds on an ...