A federal district court judge in Manhattan this week rejected Wells Fargo’s plea to dismiss a lawsuit alleging it lied about the quality of home loans submitted to the Department of Housing and Urban Development for FHA insurance over a 10-year period. District Court Judge Jesse Furman allowed government claims under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 to proceed but ruled that legal injury claims based on events that transpired before June 2009 were time-barred and that the government had waited too long to file a lawsuit. The judge also threw out claims of negligence and unjust enrichment. The government filed...

Besides Citi, a handful of large depositories are in the midst of wrapping up sizable MSR auctions this week, including offerings from Wells Fargo and Flagstar Bancorp.

A new audit of the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund is due in October and speculation about its cash reserves is not good.

HUD declined to discuss the contents of the proposed standards or indicate a timetable for a final QM rule.

The secondary market for mortgage servicing rights continues to spit out new offerings, especially in the bulk arena.

Residential mortgage REITs held $327 billion of single-family MBS at the end of the second quarter, according to a new market analysis by Inside MBS & ABS.

A federal district court judge in California this week dismissed without prejudice an action brought by securitization trustees to stop the City of Richmond, CA, and its partners from implementing an eminent domain strategy to seize and refinance underwater mortgages. Judge Charles Breyer of the U.S. District for Northern California said he decided to dismiss the case rather than hold it in abeyance because “the plaintiffs’ claims are not yet ripe for adjudication.” In other words, one can’t sue over something that has not happened or is not bound to happen. In fact, certain developments, such as the finalization of an agency rule or the resolution of pending suits in other jurisdictions, may leave...

The Office of Management and Budget has cleared a proposed rule setting qualified mortgage standards for FHA-insured single-family mortgages for issuance in the coming weeks. The OMB signed off on the proposed standards on Sept. 12 and the Department of Housing and Urban Development has a few more refinements to perform before publishing the proposal for public comment. HUD declined to discuss the contents of the proposed standards or indicate a timetable for a final QM rule. Industry participants, on the other hand, said they would be surprised if ...

The end of the fiscal year is drawing near, which means in a couple of weeks the FHA again will be in the hot seat as Congress, mortgage industry participants and consumer groups pore over the results of the latest fiscal year audit of the FHA’s Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. This time, stakeholders might find some encouraging data, observers say. The findings of the FY 2012 actuarial review conducted by Integrated Financial Engineering, Inc. brought a lot of heat on the FHA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, reigniting calls for FHA reforms in the House and the Senate. Reform bills are currently ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s top internal cop has criticized the department before a congressional panel for its poor oversight of FHA’s single-family programs, particularly in short sales and disposition of real estate-owned properties. Testifying before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, HUD Inspector General David Montoya said the department continues to face challenges in ensuring its single-family programs benefit eligible participants and are not paying improper claims. In a recent review of FHA’s preforeclosure sales program, the IG estimated that ...