Leonard Chanin, assistant director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Office of Regulations, where he is essentially the CFPB's chief rule writer, is leaving the bureau to return to private practice with the law firm of Morrison & Foerster, where he once practiced for many years. It's a big loss for the bureau, which prides itself on attracting many qualified and passionate individuals who want to make a difference by opting for a career in public service. Alan Kaplinsky, the practice leader of the...

The blowback over yield-spread premiums and subprime mortgages continued in Lee v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has determined that a lender – in this case, Countrywide Home Loans, and by extension, parent Bank of America – may be liable under state common law claims of civil conspiracy for failing to disclose fees paid to a mortgage broker. This subprime mortgage case was brought by the borrowers (the Lees) against the lender (Countrywide), its parent company (Bank of...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has asked the Office of Management and Budget for a generic clearance to collect information on compliance costs and the other effects of regulations – something the American Bankers Association and the Consumer Bankers Association said they oppose. Back in June, the CFPB published a notice in the Federal Register about its plans “to collect qualitative information from industry participants regarding the compliance costs and other effects on providers and consumers...

The Multi-State Mortgage Committee of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors and the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators released its 2011 annual report and 2012/2013 outlook.Among its 2011 accomplishments, the MMC implemented its Limited Scope Electronic examination process to increase examination efficiencies, participated in the state-federal mortgage servicer settlement, and submitted a white paper to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on the differences between the Real Estate...

U.S. Congress. Lawmakers Return Next Week. The U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives are slated to convene at 2 p.m. Monday, Sept. 10. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. New Senior Counsel Comes on Board. Chris Lipsett is joining the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as senior counsel in the office of the director. Lipsett was previously a partner in the law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, where his practice focused on regulatory, compliance, counseling, litigation, and transactional matters...

Fannie Mae recently added Nationstar Mortgage, PHH Mortgage, Seterus and Green Tree Servicing to the list of its top performing servicers for the first half of 2012. They join Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, GMAC Mortgage and EverBank in the government-sponsored enterprise’s Peer Group One as the largest firms with the highest scores. “Fannie Mae wants servicers to be responsive to homeowners who are struggling and work with them to prevent as many foreclosures as possible,” said Leslie Peeler, Fannie’s...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development appears to have lost a round in its fight to bring an alleged FHA defrauder to justice. HUD suffered a setback recently after U.S. District Judge Gray Miller in Houston granted declaratory relief to Allied Home Mortgage Corp. (AHMC) to challenge HUD’s suspension of the lender’s authority to originate and underwrite FHA-insured loans. The Houston-based lender contends that HUD acted capriciously and arbitrarily without due process of law. It based these claims on ...

The reverse mortgage lending industry urged state regulators to update the existing reverse mortgage examination guidelines (RMEG) to conform to regulatory changes that have occurred in the market in the last three years. The National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association (NRMLA) submitted proposed changes to the Conference of State Bank Supervisors regarding term definitions, examiner checklist, product descriptions, comparison worksheet, mandatory housing counseling, as well as other sections. The CSBS jointly published the ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development said it will step up its oversight of the department’s loan quality review to ensure that weaknesses, such as those uncovered in a recent internal audit, will not happen again. An audit performed by the agency’s Office of the Inspector General concluded that HUD’s Quality Assurance Division had adequate oversight of lenders’ compliance with FHA underwriting standards but for two loans that apparently eluded reviewers. QAD reviewers are required to ...

Industry trade groups last week gave the Department of Housing and Urban Development another nudge to lift the moratorium on investor participation in the FHA 203(k) property rehabilitation program. Following up on an industry request in June, the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Home Builders in a joint letter to HUD reiterated the importance of the 203(k) program in reducing the current real estate-owned (REO) inventory and addressing the oversupply of housing. The groups said the program ...