Craig Phillips, counselor to the secretary at the U.S. Department of Treasury, advocated for a legislative solution to the ongoing conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He said the decision to allow the GSEs to retain a small capital buffer was a litmus test on housing reform. Although he said Treasury didn’t feel that Fannie and Freddie have an immediate capital problem because they have lines of credit, Phillips said there was somewhat of an “optical issue,” which led to the Treasury’s decision to allow the GSEs to retain up to $3 billion in capital in December. Speaking at a Women in Housing and Finance public policy luncheon in Washington, he said, “We think that decreases tension over this point. There was...

In a joint brief filed this week, federal respondents took issue with arguments made by GSE shareholders in their fight against the net worth sweep and said a shareholder petition for a Supreme Court review of their case should not be granted. Shareholders in several cases filed three petitions for a writ of certiorari back in November. The plaintiffs asked the Supreme Court of the United States to intervene to “restore certainty and uniformity.” They claim that the Federal Housing Finance Agency acted unconstitutionally when it imposed the net worth sweep.

The plan of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee to shrink the U.S. central bank’s huge balance sheet probably will unfold with a bit of a lag because of the uncertainty surrounding principal payments and the forward-settling nature of the to-be-announced MBS market, according to economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

After their case against the Federal Housing Finance Agency was dismissed by the U.S. District Court for Delaware in November, government-sponsored enterprise shareholders David Jacobs and Gary Hindes recently filed an appeal.

Correspondent lenders and insurers may benefit from a recent decision by the U.S. Appeals Court for the Eighth Circuit regarding indemnification for prior settlements.

IRLCs generally last 30 to 60 days, with lenders agreeing to make a mortgage at a particular interest rate prior to funding the loan.

The plaintiffs argue that the GSEs and their private stockholders did not receive any consideration in exchange for the net worth sweep…

Top compliance attorneys warn that multiple state attorneys general will follow through on their vow to step up more aggressively to counteract any lessening of enforcement zeal at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the new command of Acting Director Mark Mulvaney. During a webinar this week sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance, Melanie Brody, a partner with the Mayer Brown law firm in Washington, DC, elaborated on that view. “I think it’s really important for ...

A data breach involving United Shore Financial Services and Xerox has prompted a class-action lawsuit from borrowers and a legal battle between the lender and the loan document software vendor. United Shore is the parent company of United Wholesale Mortgage, a major player in the wholesale channel. In 2011, United Shore was using BlitzDocs to process and store loan documents. At the time, the software program was operated by Xerox Mortgage Services. Al Leibovic, a borrower, filed ...

Authoritative numbers on the size of the non-QM space are difficult to come by.