Mortgage lenders may get greater clarity on the legal question of just who may sue them for alleged racial discrimination, after the Supreme Court of the United States announced recently it would take on separate lawsuits filed by the city of Miami against Bank of America and Wells Fargo. The city accused the pair of perpetrating discriminatory mortgage lending within its jurisdiction over a long period of time. The city alleged that the banks’ conduct violated the Fair Housing Act in that they intentionally discriminated against minority borrowers and that their conduct had a disparate impact, resulting in an unbalanced number of foreclosures on minority-owned properties. The precise legal issue before the high court is...
Mortgage lenders’ compliance personnel not only need to help their companies navigate all of the external regulations and laws imposed by federal and state policymakers, they also face challenges internally from representatives of various business lines in their own shops that inadvertently complicate their mission as professionals – particularly when it comes to loan originator compensation issues. “Dodging the land mines. That’s really how I think about this as a practitioner,” Loretta Salzano, founding partner at the Franzén and Salzano law firm in suburban Atlanta, said during a presentation at the American Bankers Association’s regulatory compliance conference, held last month in San Diego. She elaborated...
This attendee said one primary concern was whether nonbank Ginnie issuers would have the financial wherewithal to make advances to MBS investors in the event of another financial crisis.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency this week revealed estimates of how much it costs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to issue their popular credit-risk transfer debt notes, as well as more information on the kinds of investors that have been buying them. In addition to a report on the existing credit-risk transfer activities of the two government-sponsored enterprises, the FHFA also formally soliciting input on further development of the program, including the ongoing interest in so-called front-end CRT options. The FHFA’s cost estimates referred...
RSS