Realtors and fair-lending advocates are outraged over reports that Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson has ordered the removal of language ensuring “inclusiveness and discrimination-free communities” from the department’s mission statement. A spokesperson for HUD denied the report, blaming it on faulty reporting by the Huffington Post on March 6. Carson later followed up with his own denial in an open letter to HUD employees, which the department made public. The initial press report cited a March 5 memo written by Amy Thompson, assistant secretary for public affairs, and addressed to HUD political staff. In the memo, Thompson talked about ongoing efforts to update the mission statement to align HUD’s mission with the Trump administration’s priorities. She added that Carson helped in the development of the new statement as well as urged senior staff to ...
Accounting firm Deloitte & Touche has agreed to pay the federal government $149.5 million to settle False Claims Act liabilities arising from its audits of failed FHA lender Taylor, Bean &Whitaker Mortgage Corp.Deloitte was TBW’s independent outside auditor from 2002 through 2008, when the subprime mortgage market unraveled, triggering a financial and housing crisis. The Department of Justice alleged that, during the period in question, TBW had been running a fraudulent scheme involving the purported sale of fictitious or double-pledged mortgages. According to court documents, Lee Bentley Farkas, former chairman of TBW, and six other banking executives engaged in a more than $2.9 billion fraud scheme that contributed to the failures of Colonial Bank and TBW. Farkas and his crew allegedly misappropriated in excess of $1.4 billion from Colonial Bank’s warehouse lending division in Orlando, FL, and approximately $1.5 billion from Ocala Funding, a mortgage-lending facility controlled by TBW.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has issued new guidance on a number of topics, including foreclosure relief in disaster areas, property management and servicing, lender’s payment or credit of veterans’ costs, acceptance of properties, redemption procedures, and reconveyance disputes. VA has extended the moratorium on foreclosures in areas that suffered the brunt of hurricanes Harvey, Maria and Irma from 180 days to 270 days to give more time for distressed homeowners with a VA mortgage to recover their financial footing. VA also extended the rescission date of guidance regarding its reconveyance dispute process and servicer statutory redemption procedures from Jan. 1, 2018, to Oct. 1, 2020. VA issued additional servicing guidance on real estate-owned properties and direct loan portfolio (VA’s national portfolio), which is currently serviced by ...
After more than a year under President Trump, the MBS and ABS markets have seen minimal loosening of standards from federal regulators. Issuers are optimistic that reforms are coming as federal agencies have been more receptive to feedback, while investors are fighting for risk-retention requirements to be maintained.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman this week announced a $500 million settlement with Royal Bank of Scotland to resolve allegations of misconduct in the sale and issuance of non-agency MBS leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.
Donald Lampe, a partner in Morrison & Foerster, said: “the basic design of the no-action letter process was not very effective from day one,” because of excessive burdens it imposed on applicants.
Before going into government service, Bright co-authored a housing-finance reform paper with former Federal Housing Finance Agency Acting Director Ed DeMarco…
Issuance of non-agency mortgage-backed securities backed by non-qualified mortgages could triple this year, according to Jeremy Schneider, a senior director at S&P Global Ratings. According to Inside Nonconforming Markets, $4.08 billion of expanded credit non-agency MBS was issued in 2017, with non-QMs accounting for a large share of the issuance. Schneider and other industry participants discussed non-QMs at the SFIG Vegas conference produced by Information ...
The Senate started consideration this week of a regulatory reform bill that includes a provision to expand the definition of qualified mortgages. The bill has some bipartisan support and could pass the Senate, with companion legislation potentially approved by the House later this year, according to industry analysts. The Senate next week is scheduled to resume consideration of S. 2155, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, which would loosen ...
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