The CFPB issued a final rule it inherited from the Federal Reserve that generally extends the current required duration of an escrow account on certain higher-priced mortgage loans from a minimum of one year to a minimum of five years. To preserve access to credit, the rule creates an exemption from the escrow requirement for small creditors that operate predominately in rural or underserved areas.Specifically, to be eligible for the exemption, a creditor must:make more than half of its first-lien mortgages in rural or...

It looks like all of the clamoring that mortgage lenders have engaged in over the last year about the volume and expanse of new regulations has earned them a bit of a reprieve on at least one front. The CFPB now expects to issue its final rule on the combined and integrated Truth in Lending Act and Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act consumer mortgage disclosures in September, according to the bureau’s semiannual regulatory agenda released last week and in commentary included in its final rule on escrow accounts for...

Mortgage banking entities and credit unions are trying to prepare as best they can for an anticipated onslaught of new regulations from the CFPB that will likely dramatically reshape the landscape of mortgage lending for years and perhaps generations to come. Part of their coping strategy is to enlist the aid of bureau officials themselves to help measure out all the new rules into more digestible portions. The Mortgage Bankers Association, for one, recently wrote the CFPB, suggesting the agency use a staged...

Mortgage industry participants are confident that newly confirmed FHA Commissioner Carol Galante will deliver on reforms she committed to in an effort to reach out to Republican critics. Eighteen Senate Republicans veered away from their hardline party colleagues to help Carol Galante secure confirmation of her nomination as the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s chief overseer of the FHA mortgage insurance program and overlord of housing policies. Galante broke through the GOP firewall Dec. 30 after the Senate voted 69 to 24 to approve her nomination. She needed at least 60 votes to ...

The mortgage servicing rule proposed earlier this year by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could easily be exploited to bring any foreclosure proceeding to a grinding halt, according to a leading mortgage industry attorney. If the rule is promulgated as currently written, that could cause mortgage lenders, who are already skittish about future losses, buyback demands and a host of other pending regulations, to pull back even further when it comes to providing mortgage credit. “The consequence of these regulations is to create...

Some mortgage lenders will be able to develop and test, on a limited basis, their own consumer disclosures, under a proposed policy issued last week by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The disclosures would have to be approved by the bureau before being used. “The bureau believes that there may be significant opportunities to enhance consumer protection by facilitating innovation in financial products and services and enabling companies to research informative, cost-effective disclosures,” the CFPB said. “The bureau also recognizes that in-market testing, involving companies and consumers in real world situations, may offer particularly valuable information with which to improve disclosure rules and model forms.” The Dodd-Frank Act gave...

In a development that might catch the attention of officials at the CFPB who are working on improving consumer disclosures under the Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act and the Truth In Lending Act, more evidence has emerged that consumers aren’t very big on using TILA forms to comparison shop for mortgages.A new study from Fannie Mae found that nearly half of lower‐income respondents and more than a third of higher‐income respondents get quotes from only one mortgage lender. The survey also confirms findings in other reports that “a substantial portion of all consumers do not understand key mortgage elements.”

In what may prove to be the first of many announcements dealing with the January 2013 mandate for changes under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the CFPB has decided to give the mortgage lending industry extra time to implement certain new required consumer disclosures. Per the CFPB’s announcement in a new final rule, mortgage lenders will not be required to provide those disclosures until after the bureau’s other previously proposed mortgage disclosure rules are finalized...

Mortgage lenders say they support the CFPB’s overall effort to integrate and simplify the consumer disclosures required under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, but they’re also urging the bureau to proceed at a more deliberate pace when it comes to implementing such integration. In a public comment letter to the bureau, the Mortgage Bankers Association made three overarching points, the first of which is that the agency should continue to focus its energy on the enormous job of...

Agencies Announce Increases in Dollar Thresholds for Exempt Consumer Credit and Lease Transactions. The CFPB and the Federal Reserve Board last week announced increases in the dollar thresholds in Regulation Z (Truth in Lending Act) and Regulation M (Consumer Leasing Act) for exempt consumer credit and lease transactions. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act requires yearly adjustments to these thresholds by the annual percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage...