Late last week, the Structured Finance Industry Group, a securitization trade association, put out its long-awaited compliance review documentation related to the CFPB’s integrated disclosure rule under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. SFIG said its RMBS 3.0 TRID Compliance Review Scope documentation was put together by representatives of third-party review firms across the industry and its own RMBS 3.0 Due Diligence, Data and Disclosure Working Group.The material addresses TRID compliance issues on non-agency mortgages uncovered during reviews by due diligence providers. Under the standards, loans that would have received grades of C or D due to TRID exceptions can sometimes receive B grades if errors are corrected. The document was created to ...

Mortgage lenders throughout the land are justifiably anxious about complying with the CFPB’s TRID integrated disclosure rule. But compliance professionals at Treliant Risk Advisors recently provided a number of key checkpoints that lenders can use to prepare themselves and examine their own degree of compliance. During a presentation at the American Bankers Association’s recent regulatory compliance conference in San Diego, Lyn Farrell, a managing director at Treliant, rattled off a list of TRID technical compliance testing criteria for attendees. First, lenders should “ensure that the testing scope includes all covered products from all applicable channels,” Farrell said. They also should check that their institution provides all disclosures by the appropriate deadlines, including, of course, all loan estimates and closing disclosures....

A special edition of the CFPB’s supervision highlights report issued last week claims that some mortgage servicers continue to use failed technology that has already harmed consumers, putting such firms in violation of the agency’s servicing rules, which were released in 2013. “Mortgage servicers can’t hide behind their bad computer systems or outdated technology. There are no excuses for not following federal rules,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “Mortgage servicers and their service providers must step up and make the investments necessary to do their jobs properly and legally.” The bureau acknowledged that some servicers have made significant improvements in the last several years, partly by enhancing and monitoring their service platforms, staff training, coding accuracy and auditing, and allowing ...

Mortgage lenders looking to get ahead of the fair lending enforcement curve need to be aware that the industry will face greater scrutiny from the CFPB on two main fronts: access to credit and pricing issues, according to one top attorney. Speaking at the American Bankers Association’s recent regulatory compliance conference in San Diego, Andrew Sandler, chairman and executive partner at the BuckleySandler law firm in Washington, DC, said, “There are really two sets of issues that we’re seeing in fair lending, and that we’re increasingly going to see over time. The first is access to credit as an absolute concept.” As the U.S. came out of the financial crisis, as policymakers adopted all kinds of rules, regulations, philosophies and ...

In an effort to spur better industry compliance with its 2013 mortgage servicing rules, the CFPB last week released an updated mortgage servicing exam manual, reflecting a greater emphasis on the handling of consumer complaints as well as fair lending. The bureau regularly publishes a mortgage servicing chapter of the CFPB Supervision and Examination Manual to reflect regulatory changes, to make technical corrections, and to update examination priorities. This new, third iteration of its exam procedures offers guidance to financial institutions and mortgage companies on what the bureau will be looking for in its exams. Among other things, mortgage servicers should note a greater emphasis in exams on the handling of consumer complaints. The CFPB has enhanced the section related ...

If you’re a mortgage lender waiting for your first examination from the CFPB, there are three important principles you should be aware of, according to Burton Embry, executive vice president and chief compliance officer of Primary Residential Mortgage, based in Salt Lake City, UT. Delivering a presentation during a webinar sponsored by the California Mortgage Bankers Association last week, Embry began with the obvious: Consumer protection. “One of the CFPB’s big focuses is on consumers. It’s all about consumer protection, we all know that,” he said. “So when they are looking at your policies and procedures, for example, that’s one of the things they are looking at: the risk to consumers.”In other words, “How have you written your policies ...

Late last week, news broke of a conversation from a closed session at the American Bankers Association conference in San Diego that the “sensitive” approach by regulators to respect lenders’ good-faith efforts to comply with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s integrated disclosure rule may have come to an end. According to one well-placed source, the CFPB and the other regulators – the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency – have decided that they will start examining banks for technical compliance with TRID, begin requiring restitution to affected borrowers, and start citing banks that are in non-compliance. “Apparently, the message is...

FHA lenders will face stiffer maximum monetary penalties later this year for various violations of agency rules and regulations. The higher monetary penalties are the result of legislation signed into law late last year requiring federal agencies to adjust the current maximum penalty amounts for inflation in order to maintain their deterrent effect. Specifically, the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 2015 (2015 Act) requires federal agencies to adjust the level of civil monetary penalties with an initial “catch-up” adjustment through an interim final rule and subsequent annual adjustments for inflation. The interim final rules with the initial penalty adjustments must be published by July 1, 2016. The new penalty levels must take effect no later than Aug. 1, 2016. Additionally, agencies are required to make annual inflation adjustments, starting Jan. 15, 2017, and for each year going forward. The adjustments will ...

In a letter sent to CFPB Director Richard Cordray, the National Association of Realtors asked the agency to clarify that mortgage originators can share the closing disclosure (CD) form with third parties “if the lender receives a consent form from the consumer.” The trade group noted that, before the TRID rule was implemented, real estate agents aided their clients by answering questions about the HUD-1 and by reviewing terms agreed to in the sales contract, such as concessions, escrows, commissions and shares of prorated taxes.

Fannie Mae recently provided sellers with a little more guidance on its expectations related to lender self-reporting of errors in complying with the CFPB’s new disclosure regime under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.