Ginnie Mae will not have an annual summit this year but has rescheduled it for January 2018, according to Ginnie Mae’s new spokesperson. Michael Huff, senior advisor, congressional and stakeholder relations, said a new administration and staff departures have caused organizers to reconsider having the annual Ginnie Mae Summit this year, usually held in October. The Trump administration has yet to announce a nominee for the top job at Ginnie Mae since former president Ted Tozer left in January. David Kittle is reportedly a leading contender, but there has been no official announcement or confirmation. So far, Kittle has declined to comment. Kittle is a mortgage industry veteran who began as a loan officer and now heads his own company. He also was a top executive with the Mortgage Bankers Association and managed, among other things, the group’s political action committee. In addition, Kittle co-founded the ...

Given the Trump administration’s expressed interest in scaling back federal regulation and giving corporate interests greater freedom to conduct their business as they see fit, political and legal observers expect the Department of Justice to respond in the affirmative to a recent judicial invitation to formally opine on Ocwen Financial’s dispute with the CFPB. The nonbank mortgage servicer recently asked Judge Kenneth Marra with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to invite the U.S. attorney general to appear and to participate in the company’s challenge to the constitutionality of the bureau.“There are at least two clear reasons to invite the attorney general to participate here,” said the company. “First, inviting the views of the attorney ...

The CFPB has told Zillow, the online real estate database firm, to settle with the agency over alleged violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act or face an enforcement action, the company revealed last week in its 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Based on correspondence from the CFPB in August 2017, we understand that it has concluded its investigation,” the firm said in its SEC disclosure. “The CFPB has invited us to discuss a possible settlement and indicated that it intends to pursue further action if those discussions do not result in a settlement.”At issue are certain co-marketing activities, which Zillow defended. “We continue to believe that our acts and practices are lawful and that ...

The Conference of State Bank Supervisors told the CFPB that the ability-to-repay /qualified mortgage rule has negatively affected financial institutions that, because of their proximity to the local community, rely on more flexible underwriting and determination of ability to repay. “State regulators continue to support the principles that drive the ATR/QM rule, but have several recommendations to better tailor the rule commensurate to the community bank business model,” the CSBS said in its comment letter on the bureau’s proposal to begin assessing the rule. Citing Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data, the regulators noted that since 2010, 1,173 community banks have either left the residential mortgage lending space or extensively restricted those business lines. Rural Lending is Suffering “Although this decline ...

National trade groups representing mortgage lenders of all sizes recently advised the CFPB to broaden the scope of its pending assessment of its ability-to-repay/qualified mortgage rule. The Mortgage Bankers Association, for instance, provided the bureau with multiple concerns it believes must be addressed, such as making sure the rule better serves millennials and immigrants who are entering the housing market. Other concerns include “the limitations of the 43 percent debt-to-income requirement that does not include compensating factors,” and whether the underwriting guides of the government-sponsored enterprises and government programs could serve as alternatives to Appendix Q. The Consumer Mortgage Coalition recommended that the agency begin its review process by analyzing the products and product structures that contributed to the financial ...

Mortgage settlement service company representatives claim the CFPB’s ability-to-repay/qualified mortgage rule discriminates against affiliated business arrangements (AfBAs) when it comes to the calculation of points and fees, compromising borrower choice of service provider, and urged the bureau to revise the rule accordingly. “The QM rule discriminates against AfBAs by requiring a mortgage lender with affiliates to count the affiliate charges against the 3 percent cap on fees and points,” the Real Estate Services Providers Council said in a comment letter to the CFPB regarding its pending ATR/QM assessment. For example, if a mortgage lender has an affiliate title or insurance company involved in the transaction, it must count the title agency or insurance agency charges toward the fees and points ...

The trade group for the mortgage insurance industry, U.S. Mortgage Insurers, suggested that as the CFPB reviews its ability-to-repay/qualified mortgage rule, it assess whether lenders have engaged in regulatory arbitrage at the expense of borrowers. The organization advised the bureau to pay particular attention to the different treatment among the QM standards of the calculation of points and fees and the maximum borrower debt-to-income (DTI) ratio. In terms of the former, USMI noted, “The various QM standards provide for different treatment of points and fees – a difference that drives lender behavior without a concomitant consumer benefit.” For instance, consumers with downpayments of less than 20 percent of the purchase price may have an option to finance with a conventional product ...

The CFPB’s so-called TRID 2.0 amendments, and the related proposal to deal with the “black hole” problem – the limited ability of a lender to reset tolerances with a closing disclosure – were published in the Aug. 11, 2017, Federal Register. That act establishes Oct. 10, 2017, as the effective date of the TRID 2.0 amendments, as well as the comment deadline for the black hole proposal. The amendments, which were finalized in July, essentially codify the CFPB’s informal guidance on various issues and make additional clarifications and technical amendments. They also create tolerances for the total of payments, adjust a partial exemption mainly affecting housing finance agencies and nonprofits, and extend coverage of the Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures ...

Mortgage lending representatives told the CFPB they support its proposal to temporarily increase the institutional and transactional coverage thresholds for open-end lines of credit under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. However, more needs to be done along those lines, they said in comment letters filed at the end of last month. Under the CFPB’s HMDA rules scheduled to take effect in January 2018, financial institutions are generally required to report HELOCs if they made 100 such loans in each of the past two years. Under the proposal released early last month, the bureau would increase that threshold to 500 loans through calendar years 2018 and 2019 in order to give the agency the time to consider whether to make a ...

Ten years after the financial crisis, the residential mortgage servicing industry could be on “the edge of glory,” according to a new report from S&P Global Ratings. “With the regulatory heat they’ve received in the past decade, servicers are working to ensure they’re compliant with all relevant servicing regulations,” said the S&P analysts. “Even if some deficiencies occur, as might happen when servicing thousands or millions of accounts, quickly correcting them and preventing recurrence is key because reputational damage alone can be quite substantial and long-lasting.” In recent years, mortgage servicers have been slapped with fines totaling tens of millions of dollars, and face an increasingly tougher regulatory and supervisory regime. “A positive outcome of the settlements and new regulations ...