With CFPB Director Richard Cordray’s tenure possibly on the line while a pro-business President-elect Donald Trump works on staffing up his incoming administration, the bureau earlier this month filed its highly anticipated appeal to the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in its long-running dispute with PHH Corp. Back in mid-October, in PHH Corp. v. CFPB, a three-judge panel of the court nixed the agency’s $109 million penalty against the lender under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, and determined that the CFPB’s leadership structure was unconstitutional because it is run by a sole director who can only be removed for cause. While an appeal by the bureau was widely expected, the issue took on ...
In its petition to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit that is surprisingly brief, given what’s at stake in its dispute with PHH Corp., the CFPB seems to have abandoned its position that statutes of limitations do not apply to its administrative enforcement proceedings, legal observers suggest. This could provide a significant amount of legal certainty to lenders, if in fact it proves to be the end of the matter. In a client note reviewing the agency’s petition, attorneys with the BuckleySandler law firm in Washington, DC, pointed out, “Perhaps most significantly, the bureau’s petition does not request rehearing of the panel’s conclusion that RESPA’s three-year statute of limitations applied to administrative as well as judicial actions ...
With the CFPB widely expected to be less aggressive on the enforcement front in the wake of the elections earlier this month, the industry is being warned to be wary of a potentially more activist posture on the part of various state government agencies. Since the elections, “there has been much discussion of how expected changes under a Trump administration are likely to reduce the CFPB’s impact, particularly in the enforcement arena,” Ballard Spahr partner Alan Kaplinsky wrote in a recent online blog post. Little attention, however, has been paid to the implications of the election’s results for the role of state attorneys general and state financial services regulators in enforcing federal and state consumer financial protection laws, he added....
As part of its TRID 2.0 clarifying rulemaking, the CFPB sought comment on whether lenders should have the option of disclosing lender or seller credits as either credits specific to particular charges or general credits applicable to settlement costs. The Mortgage Bankers Association suggested the CFPB give lenders options and not settle on one approach. “Some lenders would prefer a single approach; others indicate that optionality is likely necessary,” the trade group said in a recent comment letter. It noted that seller credits are governed by sales contracts between the buyer and seller, and that local custom frequently comes into play as to who pays a specific fee, such as owner’s title insurance. “Similarly, the particular application of lender credits ...
The CFPB has made progress in its regulatory treatment of the cash-to-close table as reflected in its proposed rule to clarify aspects of its integrated disclosure rule, but more needs to be done, some leading industry groups said. “The cash-to-close sections of the Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure represent some of the most challenging aspects of the TRID rule,” said the Real Estate Services Providers Council in a comment letter to the bureau. “The industry had noted that a failure of the prior disclosures was that they did not provide for disclosing to the consumer the lender’s estimate of the cash that he or she would need to close the loan,” it added. Further, the industry did not indicate that ...
RSS