Mortgage compliance experts are bracing for up to 10,000 pages of new Dodd-Frank Act regulations that will make mortgage lending exponentially more difficult, according to industry officials at this weeks regulatory compliance conference sponsored by the American Bankers Association. Dodd-Frank is going to increase the compliance burden, the risk of non-compliance and the cost of mortgage lending, said David Kelly, executive vice president in charge of loan operations for FirstBank Data Corp. The new regulatory environment will feature...
Top servicers flagged for their faulty foreclosure practices will have an extra month to submit their mitigation plans, although federal regulators continue to bear down on the industry and are starting to withhold loss mitigation incentive payments from some companies. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision this week said they will give 12 servicers subject to consent orders extra time to submit comprehensive action plans that detail the financial resources the bank will commit to...
The Federal Housing Finance Agency has issued an interim final regulation with a request for comments on changes to its existing Freedom of Information Act regulations. In its notice, published in the May 23 Federal Register, the FHFA said it is updating its existing FOIA regulations to include the FHFA Office of Inspector General. The FHFA-OIG did not yet exist when the Finance Agencys original FOIA regulations were issued in 2009.
In light of Fannie Mae and Freddie Macs federal conservatorship status and the resulting control by the Treasury Department, the two GSEs are effectively part of the government and their operations should be reflected in the federal budget, according to the Congressional Budget Office.CBO has concluded that using a fair-value approach to estimate Fannie and Freddies subsidy costs is the best way to give Congress and taxpayers the most accurate accounting information.
Although federal regulators this week gave the industry more time to comment on their controversial proposal on risk retention in non-agency MBS and ABS transactions, some industry experts have already suggested that the concept fails to address its fundamental purpose of strengthening deal quality by aligning the interests of securitizers and investors. Risk retention is an intellectually appealing idea, but its not clear that it provides...
Bank executives expect it will be a tall order for their firms to address the various tax implications of the Dodd-Frank Act, as well as the Basel III liquidity standards, particularly with regard to securitizations, according to a recent survey by audit, tax and advisory firm KPMG. KPMG reported that 48 percent of respondents said their firms were still trying to figure out the tax implications of Dodd-Frank and Basel III, while 49 percent said...
Servicers must achieve quality right-party contact (QRPC) with borrowers as a means of determining a delinquent homeowners willingness and ability to pay his mortgage under new standards Fannie Mae has laid out regarding the management of loans in danger of default.Fannies issuance of servicing standards this week is in compliance with the Federal Housing Finance Agencys Servicing Alignment Initiative announced in late April to establish consistent mortgage loan servicing and management requirements for servicers acting on behalf of Fannie and Freddie Mac.
The watchdog agency charged with overseeing the regulator of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks said it has numerous audits and evaluations of the Federal Housing Finance Agency in the pipeline.According to two separate but related reports by the Office of the Inspector General of the FHFA issued late last month, the FHFA-OIG is in the midst of a total of 17 ongoing or planned reviews of the Finance Agency.
The Congressional Budget Office is recommending changes in how the government accounts for programs that dominate the residential mortgage market, which could make the FHA program less at-tractive, politically, and shape the post-Fannie/Freddie market. In a pair of recent reports, the CBO said the government should adopt fair-value accounting for assessing the cost of the FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the federal budget. Congress currently uses special rules mandated by the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 in creating annual budgets for the FHA, while the government-sponsored enterprises are...
Weichert Financial/Mortgage Access Corp., an agency/jumbo mortgage lender in 43 states, reached a settlement with the banking regulators of 10 states after a multi-state examination found numerous compliance and internal control deficiencies, including the use of an interstate lending desk to facilitate the origination or completion of mortgage applications by originators that were not licensed in the appropriate jurisdictions. The multi-state mortgage examination program was initiated to enhance consumer protection, foster a culture of compliance within the industry, and hold...