The CFPB has put out a proposed rule to help mortgage lenders comply with the updates it made to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act regulation back in 2015, most of which haven’t even taken effect yet. “The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act shines a much-needed spotlight on the mortgage market, which is the largest consumer financial market in the world,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “Today’s proposal reflects the bureau’s ongoing and substantive engagement with stakeholders in the marketplace, and will help industry meet its new reporting obligations.” Among the suggested alterations in the agency’s proposed rule is the clarification of certain key terms, such as “temporary financing.” The CFPB wants to amend the commentary to the current final rule to ...

Industry representatives thanked the CFPB for making an effort to facilitate compliance with the pending Home Mortgage Disclosure Act final rule, most of which takes effect Jan. 1, 2018. However, the fact that revisions are being offered at all is a sign that the bureau just cannot get it right, according to some officials. Anne Canfield, executive director of the Consumer Mortgage Coalition, said her membership always appreciates any effort any of the regulators make to improve a regulation. “However, the CFPB’s proposed amendments to its HMDA regulation falls far short of what is needed,” she said. One of the CMC’s concerns is that since the bureau has not identified what it intends to do with the data, how does ...

The Trump administration’s Department of Justice has convinced the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to grant it 10 minutes to present its unusual case when oral arguments are heard in the upcoming en banc proceedings in PHH Corp. v. CFPB. “Upon consideration of the unopposed motion of the United States for leave to participate in oral argument, it is ordered that the motion be granted,” the appeals court said in its one-page order. PHH Corp. et al., as petitioners will have 30 minutes to make their case, as will the CFPB as respondent. “The United States agrees with petitioner PHH Corp. that the for-cause removal provision is unconstitutional, but agrees with the CFPB that the ...

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, last week released a detailed discussion draft of his pending revised Financial CHOICE Act that would extensively revise the mortgage regulatory landscape. Issues of interest to the mortgage industry include manufactured housing, the definition of points and fees, a qualified-mortgage safe harbor for loans held in portfolio, regulatory relief for community banks, transitional licensing for loan originators, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act records maintenance and disclosure requirements, and HMDA data privacy. There would be some drastic changes made to the CFPB, too, most notably the elimination of its rulemaking, supervisory and enforcement authority and its market monitoring functions and turning it into a law enforcement agency. Other CFPB-related changes include: Changing the name ...

The Conference of State Bank Supervisors urged the leadership of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee to enact legislation that would grant qualified-mortgage status under the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule for loans held in portfolio, as part of a broader set of proposals to stimulate economic growth. The CSBS was one of a number of groups that responded to an invitation by the banking committee to provide ideas for stimulating economic activity. “State regulators have long supported a flexible approach to underwriting for institutions that retain mortgages in portfolio because interests are inherently aligned between consumers and lenders that retain 100 percent of the risk of default,” said the CSBS. “One solution that would tailor the requirement to the ...

Research by two economists in the CFPB’s Office of Research found that many homebuyers do not shop around for a mortgage, and that costs them a pretty penny. “Close to half of consumers did not shop before taking out a mortgage,” CFPB economists Alexei Alexandrov and Sergei Koulayev said in a new white paper. They cited the National Survey of Mortgage Originations, a representative survey conducted jointly by the bureau and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which found that almost half of consumers “seriously considered” only one lender before making a choice. Also, “Barely any consumers considered more than three lenders,” the economists added. “Worse, many consumers do not seem to realize that there is price dispersion.” In other words, ...

The CFPB’s latest fair lending report to Congress, quietly distributed earlier this month, indicates that two mortgage issues will stay on the agency’s front burner: redlining and servicing. On the redlining front, the CFPB said it will “work to evaluate whether lenders have intentionally discouraged prospective applicants in minority neighborhoods.” When it comes to servicing, the bureau indicated it will “determine whether some borrowers who are behind on their mortgage … payments have more difficulty working out a new solution with the servicer because of their race, ethnicity, age, or gender.” The agency continued: “We are committed to ensuring fair, equitable and nondiscriminatory access to credit by finding and eliminating discriminatory lending practices, and also by encouraging lenders to maintain ...

JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon recently called for national mortgage servicing standards as one key reform that will significantly increase the availability of mortgage credit to qualified borrowers. “Mortgage servicing is a particularly complex business in which the cumulative impact of regulations has dramatically increased operational and compliance risk and costs,” costs which get passed on to borrowers, he said in his annual letter to shareholders. However, “The most promising opportunity in mortgage servicing is to adopt uniform national servicing standards across guarantors, federal and state regulators, and investors,” Dimon noted. And Congress doesn’t have to get involved to address this. “In particular, the U.S. Treasury is well-positioned to lead key players in the mortgage industry (the CFPB ...

School Accrediting Body Wins One Against the CFPB. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has upheld a district court ruling that a civil investigative demand (CID) issued by the CFPB against the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) is unenforceable. This is a big deal, and not just as it relates to the bureau. “The decision represents the first time in decades that a federal appeals court has struck down an administrative subpoena issued by the federal government,” said Allyson Baker of Venable LLP, who served as one of the lead counsel for the firm on behalf of ACICS....

Investors Unite: “We’re encouraged to see that MBA has changed its position on both of these issues and we also note that in their [sic] paper, MBA acknowledges the role of the Federal Housing Finance Agency … in stabilizing the companies during the conservatorship.”