The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently affirmed that federal mortgage programs and their administrators, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are exempt statutorily exempt from state and local taxation of real property transfers. The panel – consisting of Circuit Court Judges Richard Paez, Jay Bybee and Consuelo Callahan – held that because Congress had power to regulate the secondary mortgage market, it was authorized under the “Necessary and Proper Clause” to create Fannie and Freddie and to ensure their preservation by exempting them from state and local taxes. Brought by the City of Spokane, WA, the lawsuit is part of a wave of similar filings throughout the country to challenge the GSE exemption from ...

Institutional investors that loaded up on mortgage stocks the past two years have been battered by huge losses thanks to a 34 percent plunge in originations and negative publicity generated by industry bellwether Ocwen Financial and some of its peers. But with some mortgage stocks – such as Owen – trading at 80 percent discounts to their 52-week highs, now may be the time to “re-enter” the volatile world of mortgage equities. At least, that’s how some hedge funds and private-equity firms view the matter. According to Henry Coffey, a vice president and senior analyst at Sterne Agee, there are...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development declined to comment on the progress on revised policy drafts that may help reduce lender liability and ease back-end enforcement actions. The FHA is considering procedural changes aimed at easing lender liability to spur more FHA lending to qualified, underserved borrowers. Specifically, FHA is reportedly working to raise the bar on loan certification violations, making it harder to sue lenders for unintentional or technical mistakes. Such a change could spur...

M&T Bank is facing lending discrimination allegations in U.S. District Court in Manhattan after a fair housing group claimed to have accumulated evidence of disparate treatment between qualified minority borrowers and less-qualified white mortgage applicants. The Fair Housing Justice Center, a New-York based nonprofit, accused M&T Bank of violating the Fair Housing Act by offering higher loan amounts to white borrowers and allowing more flexible criteria than those made available for minority borrowers. As of press time, M&T did not respond...

The CFPB recently warned financial institutions under its supervisory authority not to hide behind third-party non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) as a way of blocking the bureau’s access to all the supervisory information it needs from those under its charge. “The CFPB is aware that some supervised financial institutions may have entered into non-disclosure agreements that purport to restrict the institution from sharing information with a regulator, or to require the institution to notify a third party when it shares information,” the agency said. However, NDAs “neither alter the legal restrictions on the disclosure of confidential supervisory information (CSI) nor impact the CFPB’s authority to obtain information from covered persons and service providers in the exercise of its supervisory authority.”Further, a ...

Last week, the CFPB ordered Continental Finance Company, LLC, a subprime credit card originator, marketer and servicer based in Newark, DE, to refund approximately $2.7 million to consumers who were charged allegedly illegal fees. The bureau also imposed a $250,000 civil penalty on Continental. The CFPB alleged that Continental “engaged in deceptive acts or practices by making false statements regarding certain fees charged consumers in connection with credit cards,” and by “representing, expressly or impliedly, that certain security deposits consumers provided for certain credit cards” would be insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The company also violated the Truth in Lending Act and its implementing Regulation Z by requiring some consumers to pay fees exceeding the 25 percent limit ...

Numerous current and former heavily indebted student borrowers who attended schools previously owned by Corinthian Colleges will see the outstanding amount they owe reduced by 40 percent, under the terms of a deal struck by the CFPB, the Department of Education and ECMC Group, the new owner of a number of the schools. The total debt relief amounts to $480 million. Back in September, the CFPB sued Corinthian Colleges Inc. for allegedly luring tens of thousands of students to take out private loans, known as “Genesis loans,” to cover expensive tuition costs by advertising bogus job prospects and career services. The bureau also alleged that Corinthian used illegal debt collection tactics to strong-arm students into paying back those loans while ...

Following up on a lawsuit it filed late last year, the CFPB last week filed a proposed consent order with a federal district court to require a Texas-based company, Union Workers Credit Services, to pay a penalty of $70,000, and to permanently ban it from offering any consumer credit products or services.The bureau alleges Union Workers duped thousands of consumers into signing up for a sham credit card. The CFPB is tapping its authority under the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 to allege unfair, deceptive, and abusive acts or practices on the part of the company. The complaint also alleges violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. In December 2014, the CFPB sued the company over allegations that ...

The CFPB should ban the collection of debts on which the statute of limitations has expired, according to a new report from the National Consumer Law Center on “zombie debt.” “In light of the serious harm to consumers caused by time-barred collections, we urge the CFPB to prohibit all collection of time-barred debt – whether through litigation or non-litigation means – as unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices,” said the NCLC. This prohibition should apply to creditors, debt collectors and debt buyers.The CFPB has authority to make rules “necessary or appropriate” to its ability to enforce the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and “to prevent evasions thereof,” the consumer group said. It also has general authority to issue “rules ...

The Department of Justice and other allied parties this week reached a $1.375 billion settlement with Standard & Poor’s to resolve allegations that the firm’s investment-grade ratings misled investors into buying securities backed by badly underwritten mortgages. The agreement resolves the DOJ’s 2013 lawsuit against S&P and its parent, McGraw Hill Financial Inc., along with the suits filed by 19 states and the District of Columbia. Each of the lawsuits alleges that investors incurred substantial losses on residential MBS and collateralized debt obligations that carried S&P’s ‘AAA’ ratings, which effectively masked their true credit risks. S&P was accused...