Acting Comptroller of the Currency John Walsh reassured participants at an interagency conference on the Community Reinvestment Act last week that the enforcement orders federal bank regulators issued last year and the state attorneys general national mortgage settlement will work well together. “I’ve said from the beginning that it is not only possible, but absolutely necessary, that our separate actions be able to work well together. And I think we’ve succeeded in that,” Walsh said. “The steps we have each required servicers to take to fix the problems in servicing and foreclosure processing ...

Indiana. House Bill 1238 allows a mortgage creditor to petition to have a state court determine whether a property is abandoned, and lays out the criteria and procedures for the court to use in making its determination. Also, Senate Bill 298 stipulates that if a mortgage or vendor's lien does not show the due date of the last installment, the mortgage or lien expires 10 years after the date of execution of the mortgage or lien, not 20 years as had been the case previously. The measure provides an exception if a foreclosure action is brought prior to the expiration...

Department of Housing and Urban Development.Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.Federal Reserve.Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.Treasury Department/SIG-TARP.Some Nominees Pass; Two Don’t. The full Senate has unanimously confirmed Martin Gruenberg, Thomas Hoenig, and Jeremiah Norton to be members of the FDIC Board of Directors, and Thomas Curry to be the Comptroller of the Currency, after all four had ...

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray reached out to the business community last week, reiterating the bureau’s commitment to riding close herd on the mortgage lending industry but expressing a willingness to be open and to hear all concerns. “In the run-up to the financial crisis, there was insufficient accountability for those who were responsible for the foreclosure mess,” Cordray told attendees at an event at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Those who sold and packaged loans illegally or irresponsibly left others holding the bag...

An ongoing Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into possible misconduct related to Wells Fargo’s sale of almost $60 billion in MBS has resulted in the agency filing a subpoena enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against the firm. “The commission is investigating possible fraud in connection with Wells Fargo’s sale of nearly $60 billion in residential MBS to investors,” the SEC said. “Pursuant to subpoenas dating back to September 2011, the bank was obligated to produce (and agreed to produce) documents to the...

Concern among non-agency MBS investors over principal reductions that will occur under the multistate foreclosure settlement “is much greater than the reality,” said Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, who played a pivotal role in those negotiations. During a webinar sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance this week, Miller said that the $25 billion settlement includes protections for MBS investors. He said that negotiators met with MBS investors during the drawn-out process of reaching a settlement with the five largest servicers. The Association of Mortgage Investors has complained that investors...

Deutsche Bank AG has settled a class action suit with disgruntled MBS investors for $32.5 million, after plaintiffs argued that they received “false and misleading” information regarding their investment. The securities were pass-through Alt A MBS issued by Deutsche between May 2006 and May 2007, which were subsequently downgraded and “are no longer marketable at prices anywhere near the price paid by plaintiffs and the class,” said an amended complaint. The class action, filed in 2008 by unions Massachusetts Bricklayers and Masons Trust Funds, the Pipefitters’ Retirement Fund Local 597...

The Securities and Exchange Commission and Wells Fargo are in a dispute regarding due diligence reports relating to almost $60.0 billion in non-agency mortgage-backed securities issued by Wells between September 2006 and early 2008. The SEC last week filed a subpoena enforcement action against Wells for failure to produce documents. The bank disputes the SEC’s account. The SEC said it has been seeking the documents since September. The regulator claimed that Wells agreed to produce the documents but has failed to do so. The SEC said its action relates to its investigation into whether Wells made material misrepresentations or omitted material facts on certain non-agency MBS issued by the bank ...

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller downplayed concerns raised by investors in non-agency mortgage-backed securities regarding the pending $25.0 billion servicing settlement. “The current set of concerns aren’t particularly warranted,” he said this week during a webinar hosted by Inside Mortgage Finance Publications. The Association of Mortgage Investors has asked for a number of changes to the settlement, including a cap on the amount of principal reduction that can be completed on non-agency MBS to meet the participating servicers’ loss mitigation requirements. Miller said the AMI is the only group he is aware of that might challenge approval of the settlement by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “I think that their concerns are not going to be realized ...

The FHA’s total capital resources dipped slightly by $400 million in the last three months of 2011, but things could have been much worse had it not been for lower claims activity, according to the FHA’s quarterly report to Congress on Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund programs. On balance, the report shows little change and nothing unexpected during the quarter, said industry participants. The much-anticipated changes will come after two FHA premium adjustments become effective on April 1 – an annual mortgage insurance premium increase of 10 basis points and a 75 bps hike in upfront premiums, they said. The upfront premium increase is expected to ...