For mortgage bankers, it was another trying week in TRID purgatory: A mid-sized nonbank exited the correspondent jumbo market because of concerns over legal liability and separately it appeared industry trade groups have given up hope that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will issue any type of formal guidance on cures. Meanwhile, the TRID scratch-and-dent market continues to hum along and the consumer watchdog agency has begun examining residential lenders for compliance with the integrated disclosure rule. “TRID exams have commenced...

Closing times for purchase mortgages are starting to recover from delays tied to the TRID disclosure rule, according to results from the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s final rule combining disclosure requirements of the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act took effect in early October. Average closing times for various mortgage types increased in the following months, though performance has improved recently, according to HousingPulse. For example, the original closing time for purchase mortgages with a downpayment of at least 20 percent where the loan will be delivered to the government-sponsored enterprises was...

A pilot effort by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is underway in New York City and Miami to track suspicious “all cash” purchases of high-end residential properties as part of the government’s anti-money laundering (AML) enforcement. In remarks during a recent AML conference in Florida, FinCEN Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery said geographic targeting orders (GTOs) were issued by the agency in January this year and went into effect on March 1. They require identification of high-end cash buyers to ensure luxury residences purchased with cash are not masking money laundering activities. Specifically, U.S. title insurance companies are temporarily required...

Borrowers saddled with student loan debt now have a better chance of qualifying for an FHA mortgage, thanks to a recent change in the way lenders factor such payments in the calculation of a borrower’s debt-to-income ratio. Under newly revised guidance announced by the FHA recently, lenders may apply the same calculation criteria used in the mortgage industry regardless of the type of student loan-payment plan (such as income-based payment plans) or a deferred-payment plan. Currently, there are...

The mortgage industry and supporters on Capitol Hill are keeping up the heat on the CFPB, urging the powerful consumer regulator to issue official guidance on TRID disclosure errors and assignee liability as problems continue to plague the non-agency secondary market. David Stevens, president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said recently: “As one who believes that the bureau has done a lot of good work, it is a phenomenon to me that the simple request for clarity to specific questions we have submitted, amidst the clear and fact-based challenges facing responsible lending in its focus on efforts to be compliant, is being met with such resistance.” According to the MBA chief, this isn’t just lenders bellyaching. “This is ...

According to recent interviews, problems persist in the secondary mortgage market because certain jumbo investors won’t buy loans even if there’s just one, minor TRID error. At least one lender – W.J. Bradley Mortgage in Colorado – has closed (in part) because of TRID-related snafus tied to jumbo loan sales. Meanwhile, there’s new speculation that as many as four more lenders, all nonbanks, are contemplating filing for bankruptcy protection because non-agency product is stuck on their warehouse lines. No names have been mentioned so far, and it could be that talk of bankruptcy protection is premature and being looked at as a last resort. On the other hand, the secondary market for TRID “scratch-and-dent” loans is “still going fast and furious,” said ...

Respondents to a recent survey conducted by Campbell Surveys and sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance, an affiliated newsletter, provided a down-in-the-trenches perspective on broader conceptual and philosophical concerns trade group officials in Washington, DC, often talk about when it comes to the CFPB’s integrated disclosure rule. Survey respondents were asked about the effect TRID was having on their closings. Some representative comments follow: On confidentiality issues, one agent said, “I do not like TRID at all. The closing disclosures cannot be shared. How can we as agents verify all information is correct? Buyers’ agents cannot verify before closing that their commission is correct as well. It’s a complete mess on all ends.” Another agent said, “The biggest problem with TRID ...

Kroll Bond Rating Agency warned recently that it might refuse to rate certain non-agency mortgage- backed securities subject to the TRID mortgage disclosure rule until the CFPB issues formal guidance.The rating service said it’s currently unclear whether certain corrections of errors under the bureau’s integrated disclosure rule will subject non-agency MBS investors to assignee liability. This is an issue that the Structured Finance Industry Group continues to work on, with SFIG also stressing that formal guidance from the CFPB is necessary. “In instances where these violations go un-corrected by an originator, KBRA believes the risks associated with TRID-eligible loans, in material concentration, become more significant and that KBRA may consider additional credit enhancement, applying a rating cap, or declining ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not conducting loan-level reviews for compliance with the CFPB’s integrated disclosure, and that threatens investors in the pair’s future credit-risk transfer transactions with the possibility of some modest losses because of lender compliance violations, according to a recent report from Moody’s Investor Service. “We expect overall losses on these transactions owing to TRID violations to be fairly small, despite our expectations that the frequency of violations will be high, at least initially,” analysts at the rating service said. “Furthermore, lender representations and warranties and the government-sponsored enterprises’ ability to remove defective loans from the transactions will likely mitigate some of these losses.” Damages for TRID violations are less significant for a securitization transaction compared ...

Many mortgage industry attorneys seem convinced that PHH Corp. will succeed – at least at the appellate court level – in defying the CFPB in its ongoing legal dispute with the bureau. The crux of the dispute is the bureau’s assertion that PHH violated the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and harmed consumers through a mortgage insurance kickback scheme tied to a captive MI. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard oral arguments in the case, PHH Corp. v CFPB, and the day did not go well for the bureau. Former CFPB enforcement attorney Jennifer Lee, now a partner with the Dorsey & Whitney law firm in Washington, DC, succinctly summarized the tough day the bureau ...