President Trump began the week by signing yet another executive order to roll back the reach of the federal government – this one promoting “a comprehensive plan for reorganizing the executive branch.” But unlike some of the earlier EOs from the White House, the odds seem to be higher that this one may apply to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau....
Nationstar, the residential mortgage servicer, revealed recently it is being investigated by the CFPB over issues related to complying with the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act....
Anne Canfield cautioned that if the FCC adopts the changes requested in the petition, lenders would largely be prohibited from calling distressed borrowers.
The Trump administration has subtly signaled its support for PHH Corp. in the mortgage lender’s long-running dispute with the CFPB over alleged violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. In recent days, the Department of Justice asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for permission to file an amicus brief in the case by March 17, one week after the deadline the court had given PHH to file its response to the court’s decision to grant the CFPB’s request for an en banc rehearing.The court has since granted the administration’s request for the one-week extension. In its request, the Justice Department said, “As this court recognized in calling for the views of the ...
The attorneys general of 15 states came to the defense of PHH Corp. and related parties in their case with the CFPB over the agency’s interpretation and enforcement of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.The AGs of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin focused on the constitutional issues in the case, with not a single mention of the statutory questions related to the act. The AGs made three major arguments in support of PHH’s position. First, they asserted that the separation of powers plays a critical role in preserving the division of authority within the federal system, and the CFPB’s governance structure violates the separation of powers ...
PHH Corp. and related parties again made a full defense of their position in their legal struggle with the CFPB over alleged misconduct under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. PHH made five primary arguments to the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the first of which was that the CFPB is unconstitutionally structured and must be invalidated. …
The years-long legal battle that PHH Mortgage and PHH Corp. have been waging with the CFPB continues to take sudden and unexpected turns. One recent example: PHH filed a brief in opposition to the plaintiffs in State National Bank of Big Spring, Texas, et al. v. Lew from intervening in the mortgage lender’s case with the CFPB. …
With legal briefs continuing to be filed in PHH Corp. v. CFPB, mortgage experts on the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act see a bit of a silver lining, along with multiple warnings, in the handful of consent orders the CFPB brought against other industry defendants on the RESPA front. Earlier this year, the CFPB brought a $3.5 million enforcement action against Prospect Mortgage, accusing the firm of illegal kickbacks for mortgage business referrals from two real estate brokers, and in an unusual twist, a mortgage servicing operation. The bureau also acted against ReMax Gold Coast and Keller Williams Mid-Willamette, the brokers, and Planet Home Lending, the mortgage servicer – all of whom it accused of taking illegal kickbacks. During an exclusive ...
The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives recently passed H.R. 1009, the OIRA Insight, Reform, and Accountability Act, legislation that would require the Office of Management and Budget to examine major rulemakings – those projected to have an impact of $100 million or more on the economy per year – by independent agencies, including the CFPB, prior to issuance. The measure, introduced earlier this year by Rep. Paul Mitchell, R-MI, would codify many executive orders and practices of the federal government related to the process of issuing federal regulations. Those instructions require agencies in the executive branch to analyze the impacts of regulations (including costs and benefits), to coordinate with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) during the rulemaking process, and ...
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