Republican senators this week renewed their vow to block confirmation of a permanent director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unless the Obama administration agrees to revamp key parts of the agency’s structure and make it more accountable. Some, like Adam Levitin, a law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, believe the CFPB is actually more accountable than any other federal agency. During testimony at a hearing in the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee this week, he noted that the CFPB is subject to ...

Most mortgage loans made in recent years meet several of the major requirements to be classified as “qualified mortgages,” but debt-to-income tests could be problematic, according to a new Government Accountability Office report released this week. Loans that meet nine provisions specified in the Dodd-Frank Act would be classified as qualified mortgages and provide the lender some legal protection that the new law’s ability-to-repay standard has been met. The Federal Reserve has proposed a regulation to implement the DFA requirements but left some key issues – such as ... [includes one data chart]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a potential nemesis regarded warily by the mortgage finance industry, officially opened for business this week without a Senate-confirmed director, but not without new brouhaha over the position. President Obama nominated Richard Cordray, the CFPB’s chief of enforcement, to be the first official director of the new agency. Prior to joining the bureau in January, Cordray was the Ohio attorney general for two years. Before that, he served for two years as Ohio’s state treasurer. It came as no surprise that Obama did not ...

Office of the Comptroller of the CurrencyFederal Deposit Insurance Corp.Federal Reserve Top servicers submit remedial foreclosure plans. Top mortgage servicers Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Ally Financial, U.S. Bank, Sun Trust, OneWest Bank, PNC Bank, MetLife Bank, HSBC Bank, Aurora Bank, EverBank and Sovereign submitted their foreclosure practices remedial plans to the OCC, the FDIC and the Fed last week. However, some of the servicers told Inside Regulatory Strategies their plans were confidential documents and would not disclose them. An OCC official said there are no plans for the agency to release the plans or to summarize their contents...

Nevada. Assembly Bill 77 was recently signed into law, revising a number of provisions governing mortgage lending and the conduct and supervision of related professionals (escrow agents and agencies, mortgage bankers, brokers and agents, etc.), and providers of certain covered services... North Carolina. House Bill 312 was approved, amending the methods for recording a satisfaction of a security instrument with the register of deeds. It also clarifies the requirements for electronically registering plats with the register of deeds, and amends restrictions on access to military discharge documents recorded with the register of deeds. The majority of the bill becomes effective Oct. 1, 2011...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced settlements last week with two mortgage lending-related entities over alleged violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act having to do with affiliates and fees. In one case, HUD alleged that title company Fidelity National Financial Inc., through its subsidiaries, paid fees for the referral of settlement service business in violation of Section 8 of RESPA...

Democrat Sens. Tom Carper (Delaware) and Mark Warner (Virginia), the authors of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act’s preemption amendment, recently wrote Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, expressing surprise and disappointment at the Treasury’s interpretation of the provision. Earlier in the month, George Madison, the Treasury’s general counsel, wrote to the OCC to comment on the agency’s proposed rule on federal preemption, saying that Dodd-Frank’s preemption provision does not uphold the Barnett standard...

Lawmakers and regulators seem increasingly cognizant of the potential their actions to improve mortgage servicing may have to exacerbate the difficult environment servicers are confronting in terms of helping struggling homeowners, unclogging the backlog of housing inventory and complying with all necessary laws and regulations in the process. Industry representatives hope that awareness will keep policymakers from going overboard, but they remain anxious while multiple sets of potentially inconsistent and conflicting servicing standards are in play...

Mortgage servicers that have not yet contemplated adjusting their practices to conform to the principles illustrated in the consent decrees federal regulators issued earlier this year against 14 top servicers, as well as the June 30 guidance from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, better think again, and quickly, a leading industry attorney is recommending. “I think the OCC’s guidance is a clear statement of regulator expectations as to the performance of bank servicers, both in terms of looking back and addressing past issues and in creating an appropriate compliance structure going forward,” Andrew Sandler, chairman of the BuckleySandler law firm, told Inside Regulatory Strategies. “The expectation should be that other regulators, including the Federal Reserve and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will have very similar sets of expectations.”..

The controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to hit the ground running with bank supervision and examination when its doors officially open for business on July 21, even though there will be no Senate-confirmed director in place as of kick-off. “The new consumer agency is here to make sure that markets work for American families, and our bank supervision program is a big part of that,” said Elizabeth Warren, special advisor to the secretary of the Treasury on the CFPB. “Starting on July 21, we will be a cop on the beat – examining banks and protecting consumers.”...