The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau might be less than a month away from issuing its proposed rule and forms related to its project to combine and harmonize the disclosures consumer get when they’re wrapping up their mortgage loans. But that didn’t keep industry representatives from making another pitch of their various recommendations for improving the CFPB’s pending rule. Testifying during a hearing of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity last week, Anne Canfield, executive director of the Consumer Mortgage Coalition,...

The conservative watchdog organization, Judicial Watch, has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to obtain records detailing President Obama’s controversial appointment of the agency’s director, Richard Cordray.“Given the Obama administration’s penchant for secrecy, I am not at all surprised we have to file a lawsuit to obtain these records on this scandalous appointment,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The Cordray appointment is an abuse of office that disregards the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Senate’s role...

Nearly 6 in 10 mortgage modifications went 60 or more days delinquent 18 months following the date of their modification, according to a new study from TransUnion. The study only looked at loan modifiers and non-modifiers, with comparable VantageScore credit scores, who had originally been 120 or more days past due on their mortgage loans. It found the recidivism rate – the rate at which modified mortgages again went 60 or more days past due – was 41.9 percent 12 months after modification. After 18 months, that rate had risen to 59.1 percent. Arizona, California, Florida...

Maryland. Hope LoanPort recently launched the Maryland Mediation Portal, which it said was the first statewide mediation portal in the country. The portal enables all mediation participants, including the mortgage servicer, the state mediator, the housing counselor working with the homeowner, and the servicer’s foreclosure attorney, to more effectively communicate and exchange information required for a successful mediation. The initiative is a joint effort of Hope LoanPort and GMAC Mortgage, as well as Maryland’s Office of Administrative Hearings, the state Department of Labor,...

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.Key Leadership Positions Filled. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has filled a number of key leadership positions at the agency.Steven Antonakes, previously the CFPB’s assistant director of large bank supervision, will now serve as the associate director for supervision, enforcement and fair lending. Paul Sanford, who had been serving as chief of staff for large bank supervision, has succeeded Antonakes as acting assistant director. Len Kennedy, formerly general counsel and associate director, has been...

The Mortgage Bankers Association has been making a concerted push to get members of the U.S. House of Representatives to sign onto a bipartisan “Dear Colleague” letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that calls for a strong safe harbor in the definition of a qualified mortgage in the pending “ability to repay” rule. The letter is being circulated by Reps. Shelley Moore Capito, R-WV, and Brad Sherman, D-CA. A number of industry groups have asked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to formally convene a panel as per the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act...

The mortgage finance industry has only had about a week or so to begin digesting the federal banking regulators’ proposal to implement the Basel III regulatory capital reforms and other changes mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act, but there are plenty of concerns that have arisen in just that short a space of time. “This is a substantial increase in the amount of capital that banks have to hold, and it requires not only more capital, it changes the quality and the composition of the capital,” said Carter McDowell, managing director and associate general counsel at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s case against UBS Americas will serve as a test case in a series of lawsuits the agency filed in connection with non-agency MBS purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a Manhattan federal district court ruled last week. In a June 13 decision, Judge Denise Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York denied UBS’s request that it should not be the first of 17 cases to proceed because it is not a loan originator and was not accused of fraud. According to the court, UBS was the best test case because the number of securitizations and...

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has finalized a rule replacing certain credit rating references with alternative standards of credit worthiness to help banks determine whether a security is “investment grade.” Published in the June 13 Federal Register, the final rule is identical to the rule proposed by the OCC in November 2011 to implement directives in the Dodd-Frank Act to prevent over-reliance on credit ratings. Congress partly blamed inflated credit ratings for the financial crisis when triple A-rated mortgage securities lost their value as interest rates rose and home values...

Current and potential defendants in residential MBS litigation should expect more lawsuits stemming from the mortgage market collapse, particularly by or on behalf of state actors, but entities named in those suits are not without legal countermeasures, according to legal experts. During a webinar sponsored this week by the State Attorneys General Enforcement Network, attorneys Jason Halper and Martin Seidel of the law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft predicted that the mortgage industry is only about halfway through the onslaught of MBS litigation to be brought by aggrieved investors. “I think this...