Litigation over legacy residential MBS deals that went sour in the run-up to the financial crisis continued last week, as California Attorney General Kamala Harris sued investment bank Morgan Stanley for alleged misrepresentations about RMBS investments, which she said contributed to huge losses by investors such as the state’s public pension funds. In what is just the second such use of the False Claims Act by a state, Harris’ complaint, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, alleges that Morgan Stanley violated the FCA, as well as California securities law and other state laws, by allegedly hiding or downplaying the risks of complex investments involving large numbers of underlying loans or other assets. Harris used...
Since the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s March filing to transfer lawsuits initiated by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders to a new court, a number of plaintiffs have filed motions opposing the transfer, arguing that the cases are substantially different from one another. FHFA said it was looking to prevent future “copycat” cases and ensure a more consistent ruling across the board by having all of the cases heard in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia instead of scattered in different jurisdictions throughout the country. On April 6, the attorneys for plaintiffs David Jacobs and Gregory Hindes said...
The Association of Mortgage Investors recently detailed a number of issues involving the TRID disclosure rule that have been uncovered in pre-purchase due diligence reviews on non-agency mortgages. The example errors were included in a letter from the AMI to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which designed and mandated the new disclosure based on requirements of the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. “In the near term ...
A single mortgage must meet nearly 150 requirements to achieve compliance with the TRID disclosure rule, according to a framework proposed by members of the Structured Finance Industry Group. Third-party due diligence firms will test loans for most of the TRID requirements, according to a draft of the TRID compliance review scope obtained by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Since the TRID rule took effect in October, due diligence firms have found widespread violations ...
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, used a hearing by the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee this week to highlight the Federal Reserve’s lack of action on subprime mortgages prior to the financial crisis of 2008. Leonard Chanin, currently of counsel at the law firm of Morrison & Foerster, took the brunt of Warren’s criticism. He was deputy director of the division of consumer and community affairs at the Federal Reserve and helped lead the division from ...
Approximately 300 FHA lenders are seeing their recertifications held up because they failed to report in a timely manner events or changes that may affect their eligibility to participate in FHA programs.Delays are occurring because lenders have failed to notify the FHA of material events as soon as they have occurred and waited until the annual recertification to report them, according to industry sources. Under rules of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a notice of material event alerts the agency to a significant change to the information provided by the lender at application that may affect its status as an FHA-approved lender. The department strongly encourages lenders to notify FHA within 10 days of the event to prevent delays during the annual recertification. Each FHA lender must complete the annual recertification process in order to retain its FHA approval. Lenders must ...
Policy changes are underway to prevent nonprofit groups from gaining an unfair advantage over legitimate investors in purchasing real estate-owned properties under the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s single-family property disposition program. An audit conducted by the HUD inspector general found that certain nonprofits were acting as investors while purchasing REO homes through HUD’s distressed-asset sales program. While this may seem to be a case of nonprofits gaming the system, the IG said no regulations were violated because program requirements did not explicitly bar nonprofits from acting as investors during the exclusive listing period. HUD’s distressed-asset sales program is designed to clear the department’s REO inventory in a manner that expands homeownership opportunities, strengthens neighborhoods and communities, and ensures a ...
The FHA has issued new, more permissive loss-mitigation guidelines for Home Equity Conversion Mortgages, including an optional extension for mortgagees when submitting due-and-payable requests. Additionally, the guidelines allow mortgagees to cure a HECM borrower’s taxes and/or insurance defaults as long as the FHA incurs no cost and the mortgagee agrees to refrain from seeking loan assignment for at least three years. The guidelines further remove a previous restriction prohibiting the use of the permissive loss-mitigation options announced in Mortgagee Letter 2015-11 for borrowers in foreclosure. Accordingly, for HECM loans that were in the process of foreclosure prior to the issuance of ML-2015-11, mortgagees may assess those borrowers for a repayment plan in accordance with the mortgagee letter. The repayment plan must have the ...
Cutting back on its FHA business helped reduce JPMorgan Chase’s foreclosure inventory but made it harder for the bank to meet its community reinvestment goals, according to the bank’s top executive. In a letter to shareholders, Jamie Dimon, president/CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said he would rather see the bank no longer service defaulted loans. “If we had our druthers, we would never service a defaulted mortgage again,” he wrote. “We do not want to be in the business of foreclosure because it is exceedingly painful for our customers, and it is difficult, costly and painful to us and our reputation.” Chase has cut back on FHA lending and has reinstated overlays in response to stiff penalties it paid to resolve False Claims Act allegations brought by the federal government. In 2014, Chase agreed to a $614 million settlement with the Department of Justice over allegations of ...
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