Days after the full House of Representatives passed legislation that would amend the points-and-fees calculation in the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule, the bill ran into some sudden resistance on the other side of Capitol Hill. H.R. 685, the Mortgage Choice Act, is a bipartisan bill that would clarify that certain affiliated title costs do not count against the “qualified mortgage” 3 percent cap on points and fees under the bureau’s ATR rule. H.R. 685, introduced by Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-MI, with dozens of co-sponsors from both parties, would exclude from the definition of points and fees all title charges, regardless of whether they are charged by an affiliated company, provided they are bona fide and reasonable. Lawmakers in the House passed ...
The odds that the CFPB will publicly announce or tacitly concede some degree of soft enforcement of its integrated disclosure rule, known as TRID, may have improved recently when two Republican Congressmen called on the bureau to give the mortgage industry such a break when the rule kicks in Aug. 1, 2015. “We strongly encourage you to make the August 1, 2015, to December 31, 2015, timeframe a ‘hold harmless’ period of restrained enforcement and liability,” said Reps. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-MO, and Randy Neugebauer, R-TX, in a letter recently sent to CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “This would allow all parties to better understand the changes associated with TRID and help ensure consumer confidence and stability in the nation's housing market,” ...
The CFPB brought an enforcement action against RMK Financial Corp., a California-based mortgage lender, for allegedly using deceptive mortgage advertising practices, including ads that led consumers to believe that the company was affiliated with the U.S. government. According to the CFPB, RMK used the names and logos of the Department of Veterans Affairs and the FHA in mailed advertisements in such a way as to falsely imply that the ads were sent by the VA or FHA, or that the company or the mortgage products it advertised were endorsed or sponsored by those agencies. RMK’s ads also allegedly misrepresented the loans’ interest rates and estimated monthly payments, including whether the interest rate was fixed or variable. Consumers who called the ...
As the result of a lawsuit it filed late last month, the CFPB has obtained a preliminary injunction against what it characterized as the ringleaders of a “robo-call” phantom debt-collection operation, their companies and their service providers. According to the CFPB, the debt collectors, using various aliases, allegedly deployed automated calls to manipulate consumers in attempts to collect debt the consumers did not owe to them, and in most instances, to anyone else. The bureau alleges that the scheme depended on the participation of the telemarketing company that sent the robo-calls and payment processors that allowed the collectors to access consumers’ bank accounts. Named in the suit are New York resident Marcus Brown and Georgia resident Mohan Bagga, as well ...
The Mortgage Bankers Association sent a letter to House Republican leadership recently in support of three bills that would restructure the CFPB. The bills include H.R. 1266, the Financial Products Safety Commission Act, which would replace the CFPB’s single-director governance structure with a five-member commission. “A commission structure assures judicious consideration of a range of viewpoints in carrying out regulatory functions with appropriate involvement of representatives of both parties and a range of interests including those of both consumers and industry,” the MBA said. There is also H.R. 1261, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Accountability Act, which would subject the bureau to the congressional appropriations process. “It is important to note the legislation does not limit funding for the ...
Congresswoman Krysten Sinema, D-AZ, said that the CFPB can be a source of confusion for many in the mortgage industry. Although the overall idea of the bureau is sound, the implementation has been difficult, she said. “It’s been particularly frustrating for folks working in the industry,” she said at last week’s Mortgage Bankers Association’s National Advocacy Conference in Washington, DC. “Part of the frustration is that the CFPB is set up as an independent organization where Congress doesn’t have any kind of official oversight.” Sinema, a member of the House Committee on Financial Services, believes there’s a lot of room for growth in terms of accountability with the bureau, and said creating clearer rules is a part of it. “One ...
The CFPB doesn’t have enough power as currently authorized under the Dodd-Frank Act and should be given oversight over auto dealers, according to the “mother” of the bureau, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA. “The consumer agency’s early results have been good for consumers and good for the economy as a whole, but there’s more to be done,” Warren said in a speech last week. “Right now, the auto loan market looks increasingly like the pre-crisis housing market, with good actors and bad actors mixed together.” As the senator sees it, the market is now “thick with loose underwriting standards, predatory and discriminatory lending practices,” and increasing repossessions. She then cited one study that estimated that these kinds of auto dealer markups ...
The CFPB temporarily put on hold a requirement that certain credit card issuers send their agreements to the bureau every quarter in order to facilitate posting on the agency’s own website. The final rule issued by the bureau last week suspends for one year credit card issuers’ obligations to submit their credit card agreements to the CFPB. Under the rule, credit card issuers will not be required to submit agreements that would otherwise have been due to the bureau by the first business day on or after April 30, July 31 and October 31 of 2015, and January 31, 2016. “During this time, the bureau will work to develop a more streamlined and automated electronic submission system,” the agency said. ...
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