The Mortgage Bankers Association called for the Federal Housing Finance Agency to update standards for representations and warranties provided to the government-sponsored enterprises and asked for more transparent underwriting standards. “Confusion and uncertainty around representations and warranties standards continue to cause lenders to add their own overlays to the existing GSE credit standards,” said Bill Cosgrove, the MBA’s vice chairman. “As a result, lenders are only offering mortgages to those with the most pristine credit for fear that any borrower default will trigger costly repurchase requests.” The MBA detailed...

Representatives of the structured finance industry are worried about the effect the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability-to-repay/qualified-mortgage rule will have on the revival of the non-agency MBS sector. One of their main concerns right now is that the further away a loan is from getting safe harbor protection as a qualified mortgage, the more legal uncertainty and higher costs there will be associated with it. Last week, analysts at Morningstar Credit Ratings LLC noted that the rule will allow a borrower in the first three years of the mortgage to bring legal action challenging whether the lender determined an ability to repay. If successful, the borrower can be entitled to up to three years of fees and finance charges, actual damages, and legal fees and costs, they said. Additionally, the borrower will be able...

Wall Street is concerned that the further away a loan is from getting safe harbor protection as a qualified mortgage, the more legal uncertainty and higher costs there will be associated with it.

Freddie Mac's "low activity fee" will be mostly eliminated. However, it will still apply to originators that have not sold a loan to the GSE in 36 months.

Ambac Assurance Corp. may proceed with its fraud claims against JPMorgan Chase in connection with residential MBS that Ambac insured, a New York state judge ruled last week. In March 2012, Ambac filed suit against JPMorgan Chase, alleging fraudulent marketing of residential MBS by Bear Stearns and Co., which was acquired and renamed JPMorgan Securities. The suit claims that Ambac had to pay more than $200 million in insurance claims to investors from seven Bear Stearns securitization transactions that lost $1.8 billion. Ambac contends...

When rates spiked this week, margin calls to MBS investors increased. Lenders are nervous but next will will be the real test, mortgage executives told Inside Mortgage Finance.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has no interest in revisiting a program that Fannie Mae spent a year developing to directly purchase force-placed insurance even as it solicited input last week from “stakeholders” during a two-day, closed-door working group. The invitation-only meeting, closed to the public and press, drew some 80 attendees representing big banks, insurers, insurance brokers, other regulators and representatives of industry and consumer groups who weighed in as the Finance Agency decides its policy direction on force-placed or lender-placed insurance. According to those in attendance at the meeting, the FHFA officials were cordial but the agenda was strictly focused on concerns that force-placed premiums might be too high and that the industry lacks serious competition.

With the advent of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, consumer complaints have been elevated to an unprecedented level of prominence in the regulatory arena. “How many of you have had a regulatory exam that focused on complaints?” asked Lyn Farrell, managing director at Treliant Risk Advisors, at a discussion session during the recent American Bankers Association’s compliance conference in Chicago. Seeing a number of hands rise from the audience in response, she continued: “If not, you will.” ...

The Supreme Court of the United States announced this week that it will hear a legal dispute that would determine whether the Fair Housing Act – and perhaps, by extension, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act – permit claims under the “disparate impact” theory of discrimination. “The threshold issue on appeal is whether plaintiffs may use disparate impact to allege a violation under the Fair Housing Act rather than proving liability by demonstrating an actual intent to discriminate,” explained attorneys with the Dykema Gossett law firm. In Township of Mount Holly, New Jersey v. Mt. Holly Gardens Citizens in Action, the plaintiff citizen group is challenging...

There is still no official word on when the Senate Banking Committee will take up the nomination of Rep. Mel Watt to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency.