Last week, the House Financial Services Committee approved several bills that would override the CFPB on some of its key mortgage-related rulemakings. The voting included the passage of H.R. 1153, the Mortgage Choice Act of 2017, which would exclude from the ability-to-repay calculation of points and fees insurance and taxes held in escrow and fees paid to affiliated companies as a result of their participation in an affiliated business arrangement. The bill passed by a recorded vote of 46 ayes and 13 nays. Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with Cowen Washington Research Group, said in a client note, “This would permit lenders to work with affiliate title insurers without worrying about the points-and-fees cap.” Another measure that survived the legislative gauntlet ...

Last week, the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs committee endorsed a handful of legislative provisions related to mortgage financing, including a measure that tackles one aspect of the CFPB’s integrated-disclosure rule under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.One section of the still-to-be-named bill would remove the three-day waiting period required for the combined TILA/RESPA mortgage disclosure if a creditor extends to a consumer a second offer of credit with a lower annual percentage rate. It also would express the sense of Congress that the CFPB should provide clearer, authoritative guidance with respect to certain issues. A separate section deals with escrow requirements for certain consumer credit transactions. These provisions would provide an ...

More Industry Advice for a Post-Cordray CFPB. Competitive Enterprise Institute financial policy expert John Berlau said last week, “Richard Cordray’s impending resignation as director of the CFPB is long overdue.... Growth of CFPB Leveling Off. The total number of employees at the CFPB came to 1,668 for fiscal year 2017, up 20 positions from the year before, according to the bureau’s latest financial statements for the last two years.... GAO Signs Off on CFPB Financial Statements. The Government Accountability Office audited the CFPB’s financial statements for fiscal years 2016 and 2017, and found they are “presented fairly, in all material respects, in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.”...

Nearly two dozen mortgage industry groups wrote to members of the U.S. House of Representatives recently, urging them to support a bipartisan measure that would tweak the CFPB’s integrated disclosure rule to enable title insurers to disclose available discounts and accurate title insurance premiums to homebuyers. Currently, the bureau does not permit title insurance companies to disclose available discounts for lender’s title insurance on the government mandated disclosure forms. “This creates inconsistencies in mortgage documents and causes confusion for consumers,” said the industry organizations...H.R. 3978, the TRID Improvement Act of 2017, introduced last month by Reps. French Hill, R-AK, and Ruben Kihuen, D-NV, would end this confusion by amending the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act to require the CFPB ...

JPMorgan Chase exhorted the CFPB to address some fundamental flaws in the integrated disclosure rule under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act – namely, an insufficient capability for lenders to “cure” the inevitable errors that occur and the significant legal liability lenders and assignees face. As the lender spelled out in its public comments to the CFPB regarding its proposed solution to the TRID “black hole” (see following story), these are two significant hurdles that are keeping private capital from returning in full force to the mortgage market. Chase urged the bureau to address a number of unresolved concerns the industry has brought up since the rule was adopted, in order to foster stability and ...

Leading trade groups that represent various segments of the mortgage and real estate industry generally support the changes the CFPB recently proposed to close the so-called black hole it inadvertently created when it drafted the integrated disclosure rule under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. “The proposal recognizes that unexpected events occur regularly and cause closings to be delayed. Those delays should not prevent closings or increase costs for other consumers who are able to close on time,” the Mortgage Bankers Association said. “Amending the integrated-disclosure requirements to address the black hole will resolve these issues, and the remaining limitations on when tolerances may be reset will afford sufficient protections for consumers.” Other industry ...

The CFPB recently published an updated iteration of its small-entity compliance guide for the integrated disclosure rule under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, or TRID.The bureau updates this guide periodically to reflect finalized clarifications to the rule which affect guide content, as well as administrative updates. This latest version reflects the final rule that was issued July 7, 2017, and published Aug. 11, 2017. Among the revisions incorporated is the change regarding disclosure of specific seller credits (Section 13.10). There are also numerous updates to incorporate changes and clarifications from the July 7, 2017 amendments to the TILA-RESPA final rule, including: requirements and guidance on current requirements for tolerances in the good ...

JPMorgan Chase, like most mortgage industry participants, endorses the solution that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has planned to resolve what’s known as the “black hole” in the bureau’s integrated disclosure rule. However, some big changes still need to be made if private capital is going to fully return to the mortgage market; namely, more cures for errors and greater clarity when it comes to legal liability. “Chase strongly supports the CFPB’s proposal to eliminate ...

Organizations representing different segments of the mortgage industry broadly support the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s plan to address the so-called black hole in the integrated disclosure rule under the Truth in Lending Act and Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, or TRID. The black hole refers to situations in which a lender may not use a closing disclosure to reset fee tolerances. This causes closing delays due to fee changes that arise in the origination process ...

The CFPB issued a proposed rule last week to provide more certainty for mortgage servicers about when to provide periodic statements to consumers in connection with their bankruptcy cases. The consumer bureau said it is proposing amendments to certain mortgage servicing rules issued in 2016 under Regulation Z (which implements the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act) relating to the timing for servicers to transition to providing modified or unmodified periodic statements and coupon books in connection with a borrower’s bankruptcy case. Among other things, the 2016 mortgage servicing final rule addresses Reg Z’s periodic statement and coupon book requirements when a person is a debtor in bankruptcy. It includes a single-billing-cycle exemption from the requirement to provide a periodic statement ...