Earlier this month, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky ruled against the CFPB and in favor of a Kentucky law firm over allegations it paid kickbacks in violation of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. The bureau accused the Borders & Borders law firm of Louisville, KY, and its principals, Harry Borders, John Borders Jr. and J. David Borders, of illegally paying kickbacks for real estate settlement referrals through a network of shell companies. The case began back in February 2011 when the Department of Housing and Urban Development notified the law firm it was being investigated for potential violations of RESPA’s anti-kickback provision. In April 2012, the CFPB advised Borders & Borders that it, rather ...

An internal watchdog audit alleges that the Department of Housing and Urban Development has been auctioning distressed notes to investors with no formal guidance or procedures in place. In a recent audit report, the HUD Office of the Inspector General said the department did not conduct rulemaking or develop standards for its single-family note sales program. The IG said it performed the audit due to the large amount of FHA claims paid on note sales as well as public concerns over the creation and administration of the program. In addition, the IG has never audited the program. In 2002, HUD referred to the initial note sales program as the Accelerated Claims Disposition Demonstration Program. The department later renamed it the Loan Sales Program, and subsequently to its current name: Distressed Asset Stabilization Program. DASP accepts assignment of eligible, defaulted single-family mortgage loans in ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s lender disciplinary arm, the Mortgagee Review Board, has suspended a Pennsylvania FHA lender from originating or underwriting any new agency-insured loans. In addition, HUD’s enforcement center suspended owner John Seckel from doing business with the federal government. According to HUD, Seckle Capital of Newton, PA, and its owner submitted statements and certifications purporting to show the firm was properly audited by independent certified public accountants, when, in fact, it was not. The MRB said Seckel and his firm engaged in a “years-long pattern” of deceit and falsehoods. The action is the result of HUD’s ongoing effort to hold the mortgage industry accountable for the loans it originates, underwrites or services. According to HUD’s Neighborhood Watch website, Seckel Capital has a compare ratio of 164 percent. Of the 557 loans the ...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service has clarified procedures for reevaluating approved lenders’ and servicers’ eligibility under the RHS Single Family Housing Guaranteed Loan Program. The guidance also provides procedures for updating lender information. The RHS intends to review and document lender eligibility in accordance with regulation and program requirements to protect government assets and minimize taxpayer losses. Office of Management and Budget regulations require federal agencies to reevaluate and record lender and servicer eligibility every two years. “For the [USDA single family loan guarantee program], it requires making sure that lenders and servicers participating in federal credit programs meet all applicable financial and program requirements,” wrote Richard Davis, acting RHS administrator. To meet the requirements, lenders must ...

The House Appropriations Committee has recommended $50 million to fund the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s FY 2018 housing counseling assistance to homebuyers, homeowners and low and moderate-income renters. The allocation is $3 million more than the Trump administration had requested and $5 million below the amount appropriated for housing counseling in fiscal year 2017. In its budget report, the committee noted the continued improvement in the economy, which has resulted in fewer foreclosures. Foreclosure filings from 2016 were reported on 933,000 properties, representing a 10-year low and a 14 percent reduction from 2015, the report pointed out. “The foreclosure rate has stayed within a historically normal range for three years, even with the pipeline of legacy foreclosures resulting from the housing bubble,” it said. In addition, the bill retains language that ...

The CFPB recently published long-awaited updates to its “Know Before You Owe” integrated disclosure mortgage rule, finalizing, among other things, amendments on finance charge disclosures, disclosures tied to housing assistance that a borrower receives, and when information can be shared with third parties, including real estate agents. The KBYO rule took effect in early October 2015 as part of an effort to simplify disclosures under two laws: the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. The lending industry commonly refers to the combined disclosures as TRID, short for TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule. In a statement on the amendments, the CFPB noted that TRID “changed the total of payments calculation so that it did not make specific...

In addition to the so-called TRID 2.0 final rule, the CFPB recently issued a notice of proposed rulemaking related to what’s known in the mortgage industry as TRID’s “black hole,” which refers to situations in which a lender is not permitted to use a closing disclosure to reset fee tolerances. More specifically, the proposal addresses when a creditor may use a Closing Disclosure (CD), instead of a Loan Estimate (LE), to determine if an estimated closing cost was disclosed in good faith and within tolerance. Currently, lenders are permitted, under certain limited circumstances, to use revised estimates, instead of the estimate originally disclosed to the borrower, to compare to the charges actually paid by or imposed on the borrower in...

Trade organizations representing the mortgage banking industry provided a number of important suggestions for the CFPB as it proceeds with a Dodd-Frank Act requirement to assess its mortgage servicing rules at the five-year mark. The first issue the American Bankers Association raised in this regard in its comment letter to the bureau was the scope of the assessment. “The CFPB should incorporate all of the servicing rules into its review, including the rules that implement the Truth and Lending Act and the amendments that the CFPB adopted to the servicing rules in 2016,” the ABA said – not just the rules promulgated under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. The bureau also should take into account the rules’ effects upon consumers...

JPMorgan Chase told the CFPB it supports the bureau’s mission of protecting consumers and recognizes that regulatory guardrails are necessary to make sure mortgage servicers adequately address consumers’ needs. “However, certain provisions of Regulation X [which implements the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act] impose burdens on servicers that increase servicing costs and impact access to consumer credit without providing proportional benefits to consumers,” the servicer said. JPMorgan was one of the industry participants commenting on the CFPB’s proposal to start assessing the effectiveness of its mortgage servicing rules under RESPA. The financial institution went on to some of the problem areas in Reg X that still need to be addressed, one of which has to do with rules for loss...

Last week, the CFPB issued a proposal to temporarily ease reporting requirements under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act for small banks and credit unions that issue home-equity lines of credit – but based on the number of such loans, not asset size of the institution. 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 last week, the bureau would increase that threshold to 500 loans through calendar years 2018 and 2019 in order to give the consumer regulator the time to consider whether to make a permanent adjustment. “Home-equity lines of credit worsened ...