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 ...

The CFPB had numerous lapses in protecting sensitive, confidential enforcement information, according to a new report from the agency’s Office of Inspector General. The objective of the OIG’s evaluation was to determine whether the bureau’s Office of Enforcement has effective controls to manage and safeguard access to its confidential investigative information (CII). “We found that the Office of Enforcement’s sensitive information has not always been restricted to Office of Enforcement employees who needed access to that information to perform their assigned duties,” the OIG said. The watchdog said it found that 113 unique users had access to at least one electronic application when it was no longer relevant to the performance of their assigned duties. “These users continued to have ...

The CFPB and the Department of Justice have separately filed motions opposing a proposal from a handful of state attorneys general to take $15.14 million of unused settlement funds from the bureau’s $50 million enforcement action against Sprint and instead redirect it to two other purposes. The AGs of Connecticut, Indiana, Kansas and Vermont recently proposed taking $14.0 million of the unused money from the U.S. Treasury, which could receive it under the terms of the redress plan, and instead giving it to the National Association of Attorneys General to establish a National Attorneys General Training and Research Institute Center for Consumer Protection. The AGs also want to repurpose the remaining unspent amount, $1.14 million, and give it to a ...

Financial Freedom, an Austin, TX-based servicer, agreed to an $89 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice to settle allegations that it violated the False Claims Act, the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act, and FHA servicing requirements in connection with its participation in FHA’s Home Equity Conversion Mortgages, or “reverse mortgage,” program. The Justice Department alleged that Financial Freedom sought to obtain insurance payments for interest from FHA “despite failing to properly disclose on the insurance claim forms it filed with the agency that the mortgagee was not eligible for such interest payments because it had failed to meet various deadlines relating to appraisal of the property, submission of claims to the Department of Housing and Urban ...

The Securities and Exchange Commission this week charged two former head traders who ran the commercial MBS desk at Nomura Securities International with lying intentionally to customers to boost the profits of the firm as well as their commissions. The SEC complaint alleged that traders James Im and Kee Chan inflated the price on CMBS they bought and sold for customers on the secondary market. In certain instances, the two traders allegedly pretended they were negotiating bond purchases with a third-party seller at a higher price when Nomura had already purchased the bonds at a lower price. According to the SEC, the fraud generated...

The Financial Services Roundtable recently called for enacting comprehensive housing finance reform, including reform of the FHA’s single-family mortgage insurance program while focusing the agency’s mission on first-time and low- and moderate-income borrowers. The FSR’s call came in a detailed response to President Trump’s executive order earlier this year directing the Treasury Department to conduct an assessment of financial regulations. For starters, the trade group urged...

Industry attorneys are warning about a “third wave” of Lehman Brothers Holdings (LBHI) MBS trust claims against mortgage lenders and brokers based on the firm’s latest bankruptcy filing. Attorneys with the firm American Mortgage Law Group said Lehman Brothers for several years has been threatening to file residential MBS trust claims against the mortgage industry to counter trustee claims filed against LBHI in bankruptcy in 2009. The wait is...

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ interim final rule on qualified mortgages (QM) implements the Dodd-Frank provision requiring creditors to make a reasonable and good faith determination that the borrower has a reasonable ability to repay the loan. The VA interim final rule defines QM to mean any loan that the agency guarantees, insures or originates. However, certain limitations apply to VA’s Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loans (IRRRLs) in the rule’s guidance for “safe harbor.” Under the safe harbor requirements for an IRRRL, the loan being refinanced must have been originated at least six months before the new loan’s closing, and six payments must have been made. In addition, the veteran should not have been more than 30 days past due during the six months preceding the new loan’s closing. The QM rule’s six-month seasoning requirement, however, inadvertently created an ...