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 Agency’s original FOIA regulations were issued in 2009.

In light of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s 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 Freddie’s subsidy costs is the best way to give Congress and taxpayers the most accurate accounting information.

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...

Consumer and civil rights groups are up in arms over the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s recent interpretation of preemption under the Dodd-Frank Act, which would allow the OCC to generally retain its existing preemption regulations. The uproar stemmed from a letter the OCC sent to certain members of Congress on May 12 lay-ing out the agency’s views of its preemption powers under the new preemption provisions of Title X of the Dodd-Frank Act. Those views have been embodied in a proposed OCC rulemaking implementing several DFA provisions, including...

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has issued a proposed rule that features some important changes to national bank preemption and the agency’s visitorial authority in the wake of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. But industry legal experts say it’s too soon to tell what kind of effect the rule might have on the mortgage lending market or whether it may prompt charter movement among financial institutions...

In an unusual convergence, consumer advocacy groups have joined with mortgage lending and real estate interests to warn federal regulators about a host of negative consequences with their interagency proposed rulemaking to implement the risk retention and “qualified residential mortgage” provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act...

Mortgage lenders have a number of questions about the two new prototype disclosure forms circulated for public comment recently by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but none of the issues appears to be a deal-breaker...

Illinois. A federal grand jury has indicted three partners in a failed Chicago North Shore development project, a title company executive and a loan officer for allegedly engaging in a $15.7 million residential mortgage and construction loan fraud scheme to help finance the failed mixed-use commercial development known as the Center of the Northshore. The government accuses

Office of the Comptroller of the CurrencyFederal Reserve SystemFederal Deposit Insurance Corp.Securities and Exchange CommissionFederal Housing Finance AgencyDepartment of Housing and Urban Development Credit Risk Retention – Proposed Rule: Comments Due. Public comments on the interagency proposed rule on credit risk retention are due June 10, 2011. (See...