New rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau require servicers to consult with loan owners regarding the loss mitigation process and increase reporting of loss mitigation activity. Senior officials at the CFPB said they have received complaints that servicers are not offering loan modification options allowed by loan owners, including non-agency mortgage-backed security investors. A senior CFPB official said servicers do not always have strong incentives to offer ...

Loan originator compensation requirements released this week by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau aim to prohibit steering to subprime mortgages. The CFPB noted that during the subprime boom, some borrowers who would have qualified for prime loans were steered into subprime loans, with the steering largely tied to LO compensation. “Before the financial crisis, many mortgage borrowers were steered towards risky and high-cost loans because it meant more money for the loan originator,” said Richard Cordray ...

Federal regulators approved a final rule last week to set new appraisal requirements for higher-priced mortgage loans. The requirements include a complete exemption for “qualified mortgages” and certain other originations. Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry said the rule, along with the CFPB’s recent ability-to-repay rule, are key components in addressing the “worst economic practices since the Great Depression.” The final rule requires lenders originating HPMLs to obtain ...

Take extra time to read your FHA Annual Recertification Attestation before signing. It might make the difference between peace of mind and a world of pain. Phillip Schulman, compliance expert and partner with K&L Gates, said lenders have gotten themselves in hot water with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and their executives threatened with debarment, because they failed to read the fine print. Each year, mortgage lenders are required to sign and submit to HUD a document attesting to the company’s compliance with all HUD-FHA regulations and policies and that ...

Can a lender rely on an approval from the FHA’s automated underwriting system in determining whether a mortgage loan is a “qualified mortgage?” Lawyers at BuckleySandler, a Washington, DC, law firm, indicated some uncertainty after poring over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s final “ability-to-repay” rule governing residential mortgage lending under new Truth in Lending Act regulations. Effective on Jan. 10, 2014, the final rule requires lenders to verify a borrower’s financial information and determine the borrower’s capacity to repay the loan over the long term. It also creates a ...

Poor oversight and monitoring have allowed certain borrowers with Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loans to illegally rent their properties to participants in the federal government’s Section 8 housing choice voucher program, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG). The second of two OIG audit reports on HUD’s oversight of the HECM program has concluded that department policies did not always ensure that borrowers complied with the program’s residency requirements. The audit found that 37 out of 174 HECM borrowers reviewed were ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is investigating reports that a loan officer of an approved FHA lender had participated in a reverse mortgage borrower’s counseling session, a practice HUD frowns upon but does not directly prohibit. A HUD representative declined to provide details but acknowledged that the report was part of informal discussions between department officials and stakeholders. “That information … has not been officially released in any form,” he said. “Once the details are finalized, we will be advising stakeholders.” The National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association posted the ...

The Department of Veterans Affairs has announced new security measures to ensure that only authorized lenders and servicers have access to mortgage-related data. Guidance issued earlier this month establishes new security procedures for resetting users’ PIN numbers and validating their identities. Users must be validated as an employee of the lender/servicer that seeks access to the VA’s Veteran Information Portal (VIP). The VA will provide each approved lender/servicer with a list of previous users for validation. Upon completion of the validation, the list must be ...

In the end, there were no earth-shattering surprises in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s final rule on mortgage originator qualification and compensation, but the residential finance industry isn’t quite done digesting the myriad details of the 541-page regulation, which goes into effect a year from now. Among many things, the rule codifies the difference between bank and nonbank loan officers, requiring the latter to get tested on a regular basis, a distinction that does not sit well with certain factions of the mortgage banking and brokerage industries. “The point is...

The mortgage servicing industry is continuing to sift through the massive new mortgage servicing final rulemaking issued last week by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But one week into the review process, it seems clear that the cost of compliance and any strategic advantage between players is going to vary company to company, based less on size of the entity and more on the degree to which servicers have read the tea leaves ahead of time and started to prepare. “The reality is that there is lots of work to be done as an industry, regardless of your size or your portfolio mix,” said Michael Waldron, a partner and practice leader of the mortgage banking unit at the Ballard Spahr law firm. On the heels of the recent settlement of top bank servicing obligations under the consent orders related to robosigning practices, there has been...