The cost of complying with the plethora of mortgage regulations, including the high-profile rules promulgated by the CFPB, consume nearly a quarter of lenders’ operating revenue and hurt both sellers and buyers with extended closing delays. Those were some of the chief findings of a survey performed by mortgage market research expert Tom Lamalfa, president of TSL Consulting, Cleveland Heights, OH, at the Mortgage Bankers Association National Secondary Market Conference in May. The results were distributed to MBA members last week via email. Among the questions posed to survey participants was, “Compliance costs consume about what percentage of your total operating expenses?” Of the 31 executives who responded, the average was 21.4 percent of total operating expenses. “The ranges were ...

Oral arguments in PHH Corp. et al. v CFPB were recently held by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and reactions to the proceedings were all over the map, suggesting to some that the event functioned like a legal Rorschach test. FBR Capital Markets & Co. analyst Edward Mills said in a client note he thinks the case is bound for the U.S. Supreme Court, probably sometime next year. “Given the makeup of the en banc panel [mostly Democrat appointees], we would give a bias to the previous ruling to be overturned,” Mills said. “Despite the headlines from the ruling, we fully expect that either party will appeal the case to the Supreme Court, which ...

There’s plenty of talk in mortgage technology circles of e-mortgages, re-imagining the loan origination process and digitizing back-office operations, but what about the regulatory, supervisory and examination front? During a recent interview with Inside Mortgage Trends, Sharif Mahdavian, vice president of national sales at ComplianceEase, a leading industry vendor, revealed that regulators are increasingly moving to an “e-examination” phase to augment their current level of ...

Almost every week it seems like a lender launches a digital mortgage process allowing for loan applications to be received and processed online effortlessly and efficiently. However, according to a recent survey of lenders, a number of barriers stand in the way of digital mortgages. Lenders cited various technology issues, costs and difficulties getting loan officers to change behavior as barriers to digitizing the mortgage process. Some 73 lenders participated in the survey administered by the Strategic Mortgage Finance Group earlier this year. The top barrier to digital mortgage offerings was...

False Claims Act enforcement against FHA lenders appears to have slowed with no new cases being filed by the Department of Justice or referred by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s inspector general for nearly a year. Neither agency has gone after any lender for alleged False Claims Act violations since May of last year when the Department of Justice intervened in an FCA case brought by a whistleblower against Guild Mortgage, an FHA direct endorsement lender. The complaint alleged that San Diego-based Guild Mortgage knowingly approved loans that violated FHA rules while falsely certifying compliance with those rules. The alleged violations occurred between 2006 and 2011, resulting in “tens of millions of dollars” in losses to HUD. The case is pending in federal district court in Washington, DC. Indications are the FCA cases involving FHA lenders have ...

CFPB Director Richard Cordray, in an unusual move, attended the weekly caucus meeting of the Democrats in the House of Representatives last week. That prompted his chief GOP antagonist, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling of Texas, to say Cordray’s appearance shows that Democrats use the CFPB as a political war machine. “Everyone knows Mr. Cordray will likely leave the CFPB soon and pursue political office in Ohio again, but his attendance at what amounts to nothing more than a Democrat pep rally shows just how partisan and politicized he and his supposed ‘independent’ agency truly are,” the Republican said. According to Hensarling, liberal elites in Washington, DC, want to keep the bureau unaccountable to the American people so ...

As a vote by the full House of Representatives nears on H.R. 10, the Financial CHOICE Act, dozens of law professors from around the country wrote congressional leadership to oppose provisions of the bill that would gut the CFPB. In their letter, the legal academics took particular issue with Title VII of the legislation, which would subject the CFPB to the regular congressional appropriations process and eliminate the bureau’s rulemaking, supervisory and enforcement authority (including that over unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices, or UDAAP). “Title VII of H.R. 10 seeks to kill the CFPB by a thousand cuts,” the professors said. “Historically, Congress has accorded all federal bank regulators independence to insulate their decisions from industry and political ...

The Financial Services Roundtable advised the Trump administration that the structure of the CFPB needs to be changed, and that the agency should revise a handful of its key mortgage rulemakings, most notably the ability-to-repay/qualified mortgage rule, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act rule and the Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure rule, or TRID. The FSR’s call came in a detailed response to President Trump’s Executive Order 13777, “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs,” issued earlier this year, directing the Treasury Department to conduct an assessment of financial regulations to evaluate how they align with the White House’s core principles of financial regulation.In terms of the bureau itself, the industry organization said the governance structure ...

The Consumer Mortgage Coalition and the Mortgage Servicers Working Group asked the CFPB for guidance on how to comply with bankruptcy-related provisions when a confirmed successor-in-interest, who is not legally a borrower, has filed a bankruptcy petition. Under Regulations X and Z, these successors will be considered borrowers. Their inquiry came in response to the bureau’s request for comment on its plan to assess its 2013 mortgage servicing rules. One question the industry representatives had is whether the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act applies to the mortgage servicing rule’s early intervention requirements.They note that Section 1024.39(c) of Reg X provides some exemption from early intervention written notices if any borrower on the loan sends an FDCPA cease-communication notice “with ...

The CFPB has stepped back into the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act enforcement ring by probing Zillow over issues related to co-marketing. The probe of the company’s co-marketing initiative was disclosed to the public earlier this month by Zillow CFO Kathleen Philips during the company’s first quarter earnings conference call with investors. “Over the past two years, the CFPB has been reviewing our program for compliance with RESPA,” Philips said. “Recently, the CFPB requested additional information and documents from us as part of their evaluation, which we are working with them on,” she added. “We believe our co-marketing program has, and continues to, allow agents and lenders to comply with the law while using our product.” This could be another ...