The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which inherited RESPA enforcement from HUD, has been leaning on this test in such enforcement actions of its own.

In other subprime news, industry veteran Jon Daurio was recently in New York talking to potential investors about his new nonbank venture, Nikkael Capital Corp.

What's the outlook for making mortgages collateralized by homes located in federal flood plains? Answer: Not so good.

“Eminent domain may be a local matter, but in the context of seizing mortgages, its use would have national consequences,” the four senators write in their letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.

Over the past two years, the FHA endorsed 9,183 loans between $600,000 and $729,750

How much individual sellers pay for their g-fees is one of the best-kept secrets in the industry.

The GSEs are beginning to take in a significant amount of money from R&W settlements, but both stand to reap an even larger windfall from a pending civil lawsuit filed by the FHFA against 17 issuers of private label MBS.

Meanwhile, the regulator Monday morning unveiled new “master policy” requirements for the MI industry, which will make it harder for insurance firms to get out paying claims on defaulted mortgages.

Standard & Poor’s recently published an updated estimate of likely losses stemming from mortgage-related litigation, finding that banks face future costs of $56.5 billion to $104 billion.

The CFPB has gone ahead and issued the last big piece to the mortgage finance puzzle it was mandated to manufacture by the Dodd-Frank Act, the integrated mortgage-disclosure rule under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and the Truth in Lending Act and related forms. The good news for the mortgage finance industry – apart from the 20-month implementation period – is that the new rule and forms, part of the bureau’s “know before you owe” initiative, are not nearly as “transformational” towards the fundamental nature of the...