The Consumer Mortgage Coalition and the Mortgage Servicers Working Group wrote the CFPB recently to express their concerns with the bureau’s proposal on successors in interest and urged a more simplified approach instead. “While the CFPB stated that the successors in interest proposal was designed to make account information available to confirmed successors in interest, and to make loss mitigation procedures available to them, the proposal would not make these available,” the groups said. To begin with, privacy protections that the CFPB has not proposed to amend would continue to prohibit servicers from providing information absent borrower consent. “When the borrower does consent to disclosures, the disclosures are permitted under current law,” the CMC and the MSWG note. Also under ...
CFPB Director Richard Cordray last week defended the approach his agency has taken in its public enforcement actions, which many in the industry have criticized as “regulation by enforcement.” “I think that criticism is badly misplaced,” Cordray said Wednesday in a speech at a meeting of the Consumer Bankers Association in Phoenix. Certainly, he said, any responsible official charged with enforcing the law has to recognize that he should be thoughtful in how he deploys his agency’s limited resources most efficiently to protect the public. “That means working toward a pattern of actions that conveys an intelligible direction to the marketplace, so as to create deterrence that can be readily understood and implemented,” said the CFPB chief. The alternative, as ...
The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California last week granted the CFPB’s request for a final judgement against debt relief company Morgan Drexen, Inc., bringing to an end a lawsuit filed by the bureau back in August 2013. The agency alleged that the company and its leadership charged illegal upfront fees for debt relief services and misrepresented their services to consumers. According to the CFPB, when consumers signed up for Morgan Drexen’s services, the company presented them with two contracts, one for debt settlement services and one for bankruptcy-related services. Based on its investigation, the bureau brought suit alleging that consumers who signed up sought services for debt relief and not bankruptcy, that little to no bankruptcy ...
Last week, the CFPB asked the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California Southern Division to enter a final judgment and order that would shut down Student Loan Processing.US, and crack down on its sole owner, James Krause, for allegedly charging borrowers millions of dollars in illegal upfront fees for federal student loan services. The order would also require the company to pay refunds to thousands of consumers the bureau says were harmed, as well as a civil money penalty. In December 2014, the CFPB sued the company and Krause, alleging they illegally marketed and sold services promising to advise and assist borrowers applying for Department of Education student loan repayment programs. According to the bureau’s complaint, the ...
CFPB Now Accepting Complaints About Online ‘Marketplace’ Lenders. The bureau is now taking complaints from the public about online marketplace lenders, including companies that play in the mortgage space. “When consumers shop for a loan online we want them to be informed and to understand what they are signing up for,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “All lenders, from online startups to large banks, must follow consumer financial protection laws. By accepting these consumer complaints, we are giving people a greater voice in these markets and a place to turn to when they encounter problems.” The bureau also released a consumer bulletin that outlines tips for consumers who are considering taking [with exclusive data chart] ...
After starting 2015 with a net decline in supply of outstanding single-family mortgage securities, the market began to rally and ended the year with a modest gain. A new analysis by Inside MBS & ABS reveals that total residential MBS in the market reached $6.412 trillion at the end of last year, an 0.5 percent increase from the third quarter and up 1.0 percent from yearend 2014. The growing supply of residential MBS slightly outpaced the 0.3 percent increase in home mortgage debt outstanding, resulting in a 64.2 percent securitization rate in the fourth quarter. There are...[Includes two data tables]
JPMorgan Chase is preparing to issue the first non-agency MBS that will comply with a securitization safe harbor established by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 2010, according to presale reports published this week. The $1.89 billion Chase Mortgage Trust 2016-1 received preliminary AAA ratings from Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service. According to Fitch, Chase will sell only the subordinateclasses to investors, retaining the senior tranche, which accounts for 87.7 percent of the MBS. To meet the FDIC safe-harbor requirements, Chase will also retain...
When the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a final rule in August 2014 setting disclosure requirements for publicly-registered MBS and ABS, one of the outstanding provisions was whether to apply the loan-level disclosure requirements to private-placement 144A deals. More than 18 months later, it’s unclear whether the SEC will increase disclosure requirements for private placements, though industry participants expect that some action is in the works. Charles Sweet, a practice development leader at the law firm of Morgan Lewis, noted that the SEC asked the Structured Finance Industry Group to submit refreshed comments regarding the outstanding provisions included in the so-called Regulation AB2 final rule. “They are...
The Federal Housing Finance Agency this week filed a request to transfer lawsuits brought by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders in four district courts to the U.S. District Court in Washington. The government-sponsored enterprise regulator hopes to ward off future “copycat” cases and those where plaintiffs may be encouraged to “shop” for the best forum, based on the ruling. FHFA said it is certain that the number of pending complaints challenging the quarterly U.S. Treasury sweep of Fannie and Freddie net income will continue to grow. As a result, the agency said the transfer would be more efficient and benefit the parties and courts. “The claims and relief sought in each of the four related cases are...
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