In an apparent confirmation of the fears of some industry representatives, CFPB Director Richard Cordray seemed to blame technology vendors for some of the failures the mortgage industry might have in complying with the bureau’s Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule. “Quite frankly, I have been disturbed by reports I have been hearing about the vendors on whom so many of you rely,” Cordray said in a speech at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual convention in San Diego recently. “Some vendors performed poorly in getting their work done in a timely manner, and they unfairly put many of you on the spot with changes at the last minute or even past the due date,” ...

CFPB Director Richard Cordray pooh-pooh’ed mortgage lender concerns that the Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule will hurt their business because of the need to extend closings when revisions prompt another round of disclosures. “Now, just as we heard prophets of doom bemoaning the effects of the [ability-to-repay] qualified mortgage rule before it took effect, so too we are hearing some of the same voices bemoaning the effects that the ‘Know Before You Owe’ mortgage disclosure rule will have,” the director said at the recent Mortgage Bankers Association annual convention in San Diego. “They say that by requiring closing disclosures to be provided three days in advance, the rule will delay and disrupt closings,” ...

Most (86 percent) of U.S. banks and credit union respondents in a recent survey by Wolters Kluwer Financial Services ranked the CFPB’s Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule as the top regulatory challenge facing their organizations. When asked about complying with the complex TRID rules, 32 percent of respondents cited “collaborating with stakeholders” as their top issue, while 24 percent identified “last-minute changes that trigger closing delays” as the top anticipated challenges. Another 17 percent cited “information technology preparedness” as the top challenge, while 18 percent were still unsure about the regulation’s greatest impact on their operations. Overall, concerns about regulatory compliance and risk management challenges rose 7 percent compared to WKFS’ survey from ...

CFPB Director Richard Cordray showed no sign of backing down when it comes to the bureau’s expanded scrutiny of and skepticism toward marketing services agreements as possible violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. Speaking at the recent Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual convention in San Diego, the director noted that his agency concluded from its enforcement experience that MSAs necessarily involve substantial legal and compliance risk for the parties to the agreements – whether they are lenders, brokers, title companies or real estate professionals. “We believe those risks are greater and less capable of being controlled by careful monitoring than mortgage industry participants may have recognized in the past,” said the director. “MSAs appear to create opportunities for parties to ...

With the brouhaha over the CFPB’s interest in the industry use of marketing services agreements growing, it is the bureau itself that is the biggest threat under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, a leading industry attorney charged last week. “The threat, in a few short words, is the CFPB,” said Donald Lampe, a partner with the Morrison & Foerster law firm, during a webinar last week sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance, an affiliated publication. “The CFPB, before our eyes, is rewriting the law, rules and previous guidance on RESPA Section 8(c)(2), which is the exception to RESPA for bona fide payments for services actually rendered – not just for MSAs, but so far, MSAs have received the most attention,” he ...

CFPB Retracts Cordray’s Claim About Most Jumbo Mortgages Being Non-QMs. Questions from Inside Nonconforming Markets, an affiliated newsletter, compelled the CFPB to concede that Director Richard Cordray misspoke during a speech at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s recent annual convention in San Diego. In asserting that the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule hasn’t caused a significant reduction in mortgage originations, Cordray referenced jumbo loans, “most of which are non-QM loans,” he said. “While comprehensive data on the non-QM share of jumbo mortgages are not available, a number of data sources suggest that most jumbos are in fact QMs, not non-QMs,” Inside Nonconforming Markets went on to note. Three of the five largest jumbo lenders told the newsletter most of their jumbos are QMs, ...

Lender anxiety tied to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s crackdown on marketing services agreements is reaching a new fever pitch these days, while spreading to other sectors of the housing finance industry, namely home builders and Realtors. Industry officials interviewed by Inside Mortgage Finance over the past two weeks said title insurance affiliates owned by Realtors and home builders are a particular area of concern – namely pushing customers into using service providers in which they have an ownership stake. “I’ll tell...

First Mortgage Corp., Ontario, CA, this month completed its liquidation, selling its branch network and $6 billion of servicing rights to other firms, and winding down a 44-year-old business that catered to FHA borrowers with lower credit scores. Jean Ziroli-Kobielsky, a recruiter for the family-owned business, noted that it wasn’t fear of regulatory oversight that prompted her father and brother to sell FMC, it was technology: “Some of our technology systems were still using DOS,” she told Inside Mortgage Finance. (DOS, or disk operating system, was the precursor to the Microsoft Windows software line for PCs.) She said...

Mortgage bankers have been obsessed with regulation for the past five years, with good reason. Yet there was a sense at this week’s annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association that the industry is ready to move on. The natural turning point is that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has wrapped up the major pieces of its rulemaking mandates from the Dodd-Frank Act. The new final rule on Home Mortgage Disclosure Act reporting was released late last week, and the widely-dreaded integrated-disclosure requirements went into effect early this month. The so-called TRID still doesn’t sit...

The CFPB recently issued much-sought but quite limited guidance to the mortgage industry on marketing services agreements, emphasizing the legal and regulatory risks for lenders. “We are deeply concerned about how marketing services agreements are undermining important consumer protections against kickbacks,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “Companies do not seem to be recognizing the extent of the risks posed by implementing and monitoring these agreements within the bounds of the law.” The guidance, in the form of a five-page bulletin, explains that, while marketing services agreements are usually framed as payments for advertising or promotional services, “in some cases the payments are actually disguised compensation for referrals. Any agreement that entails exchanging a thing of value for referrals of settlement ...