FHA insured approximately $1.9 billion of ineligible mortgage loans made to borrowers with delinquent federal debts or who are subject to federal administrative offset for past-due child support payments, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s inspector general. Approximately 9,500 loans were ineligible because the sources used by lenders to identify ineligible borrowers lacked sufficient information to raise red flags. In addition, FHA failed to guide lenders adequately in reviewing child support payments, the IG said. Federal law prohibits loans, loan guarantees or insurance to delinquent federal debtors, including those with delinquent child support subject to administrative offset, until the delinquency is resolved. Auditors drew a statistical sample of 60 loans from 13,927 FHA-insured loans that closed in 2016 and analyzed data on their related borrowers in the ...
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is siding with Republicans when it comes to changing the structure of the CFPB, favoring a shift to a bipartisan commission and Congressional control over the agency’s funding. The Chamber, a business-oriented lobbying group with strong ties to the GOP, outlined 23 recommendations in six categories, such as enforcement, supervision and education. The organization has long argued that the financial industry and consumers would benefit from substantial ...
If the CFPB wants to make the civil investigative demand process less painful for companies, it might consider installing a high-level approval process before a CID even gets off the ground, according to another government agency – the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC late last week filed a comment letter on the CFPB’s request for information on CIDs, suggesting ways the agency can relieve the burden on investigative demand recipients. Mortgage lenders that have received one or more CIDs have ...
Proposed changes to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act have become a key flashpoint of controversy in the advancing effort to reform the Dodd-Frank Act. The Senate last week passed legislation that would exempt depository institutions that have relatively small mortgage operations from new HMDA disclosure requirements – and some existing ones – that were mandated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The expanded HMDA reporting regime is taking effect for mortgage (include one data chart) ...
The CFPB recently issued a final rule that the agency said would help mortgage servicers communicate with borrowers facing bankruptcy. The rule amended the timing requirements for servicers to provide periodic statements to consumers in bankruptcy. The rule will go into effect on April 19. At that point, servicers will be required to send monthly billing statements to consumers in active bankruptcy cases and certain cases in which the debtor’s personal liability was previously discharged. To give ...
The Mortgage Bankers Association recently met with CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney to discuss CFPB reform priorities regarding the bureau’s requests for information. The MBA wrote to Mulvaney following the meeting to offer further thoughts to improve the agency’s operations. Mulvaney launched a “call for evidence” in January to review the bureau’s enforcement, supervision, rulemaking, and other activities, and has so far issued eight RFIs. MBA said it appreciated the agency’s effort to engage ...
The CFPB’s civil investigative demands seem to be particularly burdensome to small mortgage lenders, as painful experiences were shared via comments responding to the agency’s request for information. The bureau issued a RFI on CIDs in January, a vehicle for the agency to obtain information from people and institutions relevant to an investigation. One mortgage lender that has received one CID said its experience dealing with CIDs is “frustrating, unduly burdensome and particularly disruptive to its…
Realtors and fair-lending advocates are outraged over reports that Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson has ordered the removal of language ensuring “inclusiveness and discrimination-free communities” from the department’s mission statement. A spokesperson for HUD denied the report, blaming it on faulty reporting by the Huffington Post on March 6. Carson later followed up with his own denial in an open letter to HUD employees, which the department made public. The initial press report cited a March 5 memo written by Amy Thompson, assistant secretary for public affairs, and addressed to HUD political staff. In the memo, Thompson talked about ongoing efforts to update the mission statement to align HUD’s mission with the Trump administration’s priorities. She added that Carson helped in the development of the new statement as well as urged senior staff to ...
Accounting firm Deloitte & Touche has agreed to pay the federal government $149.5 million to settle False Claims Act liabilities arising from its audits of failed FHA lender Taylor, Bean &Whitaker Mortgage Corp.Deloitte was TBW’s independent outside auditor from 2002 through 2008, when the subprime mortgage market unraveled, triggering a financial and housing crisis. The Department of Justice alleged that, during the period in question, TBW had been running a fraudulent scheme involving the purported sale of fictitious or double-pledged mortgages. According to court documents, Lee Bentley Farkas, former chairman of TBW, and six other banking executives engaged in a more than $2.9 billion fraud scheme that contributed to the failures of Colonial Bank and TBW. Farkas and his crew allegedly misappropriated in excess of $1.4 billion from Colonial Bank’s warehouse lending division in Orlando, FL, and approximately $1.5 billion from Ocala Funding, a mortgage-lending facility controlled by TBW.
Ginnie Mae is considering a risk-sharing pilot that would have private capital absorb some of the potential losses on FHA loans securitized through the agency. In remarks at the Structured Finance Industry Group conference in Las Vegas recently, Michael Bright, executive vice president and chief operating officer with Ginnie, said no decision has been made on any credit-enhancement structure, as consultations with stakeholders are still ongoing. “We are actively looking at structures we can put in place where we bring in private capital to provide a [partial] guarantee,” explained Bright, Ginnie’s acting president. “The FHA is going be involved in a lot of them.” A risk-share partnership between FHA and private credit enhancers not only would protect the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund but reduce taxpayer risk as well, observers said. The risk-sharing concept would have private mortgage insurers assuming ...
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