The Federal Housing Finance Agency is looking to consolidate four outstanding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholder cases into one location and said it expects more cases will be filed soon. This week, the agency filed a request to transfer cases pending in four district courts to the U.S. District Court in Washington to discourage “copycat” claims and ensure consistent outcomes. “The claims and relief sought in each of the four related cases are substantially similar,” the FHFA said in court documents. “As a practical matter, plaintiffs are relitigating the same legal issues over and over in hopes of finding a court that will rule in their favor.” So far, there have been 15 complaints challenging the Treasury sweep and...

Whether mortgage lenders get any additional, official clarification or guidance regarding the TRID rule is another matter entirely.

“The mortgage industry is in big trouble if companies shut their doors based on a missing signature. Yes, TRID does that,” said Paul Hindman, managing director of Grid Origination Services.

We understand that a nonbank called Supreme Lending has been hiring quite a few of WJB’s former staff.

Mortgage lenders posted a sizable increase in home-equity loan originations last year, but the overall market fell to its lowest level since 2004. A new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis and ranking shows an estimated $182.6 billion in home-equity lending last year, mostly through home-equity lines of credit and, to a lesser extent, closed-end second mortgages. That was up 19.1 percent from a revised estimate of $153.3 billion back in 2014, somewhat slower than the 33.5 percent increase in first-lien originations in 2015. Home-equity originations declined...[Includes three data tables]

The Department of Housing and Urban Development this week unveiled final loan-level and lender-level certifications aimed at easing lender anxiety over potential enforcement actions due to minor errors, but a statement from the Justice Department could put a damper on the new FHA policy. The updated version of FHA’s loan-level certification clarifies that lenders will be held accountable for mistakes that would have prompted a lender to change its decision to approve a loan, not for minor errors. In addition, HUD opened a 30-day comment period for lender-level certification to address stakeholders’ concerns that proposed changes to loan-level certification could weaken the department’s enforcement authority. Lender liability under the federal False Claims Act has been...

Over the past two weeks, the mortgage mergers-and-acquisitions market shifted into high gear with speculation surrounding such top-ranked mortgage firms as PHH Corp. and Flagstar Bancorp. Then again, in the past, both of these top-10 lenders have been the subject of takeover rumors with deals falling to the wayside over price or other concerns. This time it could be different. And then there’s...

Loan underwriters who claimed they were improperly classified as exempt and thereby wrongfully denied overtime pay lost on appeal after a federal appeals court determined they were administrative employees “helping run or service a business” as opposed to engaging in loan production. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit stands in stark contrast to the Second Circuit’s 2009 opinion in a similar case, which held that underwriters are administrative workers who are eligible for overtime pay if they engage in production activities, industry attorneys said. In Lutz v. Huntington Bancshares, Inc., the bank’s underwriters primarily reviewed...

Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee are working on a regulatory relief bill as an alternative to the Dodd-Frank Act, many of the regulatory provisions of which have yet to be promulgated more than five years after enactment. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, chairman of the committee, made the announcement and revealed some of the details earlier this week during a government relations event sponsored by the American Bankers Association in Washington, DC. “I can report...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has not changed its “corrective and diagnostic” supervisory and enforcement approach towards the industry’s implementation of the integrated disclosure rule known as TRID, and does not expect to bring any enforcement action any time soon unless there is blatant misconduct, CFPB Director Richard Cordray told members of Congress this week. Whether mortgage lenders get any additional, official clarification or guidance from the agency to help with their compliance and litigation concerns is another matter. During a hearing Wednesday of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-MO, engaged...