A key judicial review panel last week said the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s March bid to consolidate all the GSE shareholder lawsuits and transfer them to one court was “inappropriate” and rejected the government’s request. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation said that the government’s case for centralization was not strong enough. “On the basis of the papers filed and hearing session held, we conclude that centralization is not necessary for the ...

A new poll by the U.S. Mortgage Insurers showed strong consumer support for housing reform efforts that rely on private capital to take on a majority of the risk currently placed on the GSEs. Close to half of the 2,000 respondents, 48 percent, said the private sector should bear the responsibility for the risk of losses on bad loans. Some 19 percent of the respondents said borrowers should bear the responsibility, while another 19 percent were not certain who the loss should ...

A judge overseeing a key GSE shareholder lawsuit says she will look at another batch of government documents to determine whether they should be made available to the plaintiffs. The Federal Housing Finance Agency and Treasury Department are opposing the decision. Judge Margaret Sweeney’s May 20 order, in the Fairholme Funds, Inc. v. The United States case, requests that the defendants provide the court with hard copies of some of the documents listed in the ...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, is urging the Federal Housing Finance Agency to solicit public comments on FHFA’s policy regarding super-liens imposed by homeowner associations on loans in foreclosure. The FHFA has said it is obligated to protect the rights of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and will aggressively do so. Super-lien laws are currently in 22 states and the District of Columbia. They allow homeowner associations that are owed fees to take priority over ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac credit-risk transfer transactions have evolved since they were introduced in late 2012, according to a recent report by DBRS. The rating service analyzed Fannie’s Connecticut Avenue Securities and Freddie’s Structured Agency Credit Risk transactions and concluded that they have performed well with low delinquencies. DBRS attributed the strong performance to “prudent underwriting, the GSEs’ solid seller and servicer approval process and ...

Freddie Mac Sells $130 Million of NPLs. Last week, Freddie Mac announced it auctioned 487 deeply delinquent loans serviced by JPMorgan Chase Bank from its portfolio on May 31, 2016. The loans have been delinquent for approximately three and half years on average and the transaction is expected to settle in August 2016. Mortgages that were previously modified and subsequently became delinquent comprise ... [Includes two briefs]

The banking industry still hasn’t touched bottom in its years-long retreat from the mortgage servicing rights business. Banks and thrifts reported a total of $4.001 trillion of single-family mortgage servicing for other investors, most commonly mortgage-backed securities trusts, as of the end of March. That was down some $52.9 billion from the previous quarter, a 1.3 percent decline, according to a new analysis of call-report data by Inside Mortgage Trends ... [Includes one data chart]

Watt has given no indication that he wants to wade into this mess and has repeatedly stressed that it’s up to Congress to figure out what to do with Fannie and Freddie.

Government-sponsored enterprise Fannie Mae recently issued some additional guidance to its mortgage lender partners about self-reporting deficiencies in complying with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s integrated disclosure rule known as TRID. In a new selling-guide announcement, Fannie said, “Lenders are not obligated to self-report any matters related to possible TRID non-compliance, regardless of the number of loans involved, except in two limited circumstances where a repurchase demand is an authorized remedy.” The first circumstance is...

Portfolio lenders would get an expanded safe harbor from litigation under the qualified mortgage standard in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability-to-repay rule under a proposed Republican replacement of the controversial Dodd-Frank Act. “Our plan ... provides critically needed mortgage relief with reforms that let community banks back into the mortgage business and ensure qualified borrowers can purchase a home while preserving prudent underwriting standards,” said House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, in a speech at the Economic Club of New York on Tuesday morning. “Changes include an ability-to-repay safe harbor for loans held on portfolio, ensuring the availability of mortgage credit for manufactured homes, fixing the way points and fees are calculated, and exempting small servicers from escrow requirements.” The proposal, the Financial CHOICE (Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs) Act, includes...