VA Extends Making Home Affordable Program. The Department of Veterans Affairs has extended the Making Home Affordable program to Oct. 1, 2017. The program was set to expire on Jan. 1, 2017. USDA Approves NewFed Mortgage to originate Section 52 Guaranteed Rural Housing Loans. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved NewFed Mortgage Corp., a multi-state residential mortgage lender, to originate USDA loans. Based in Danvers, MA, retailer NewFed offers FHA, VA, USDA, conventional and jumbo mortgage products. Reviews Genworth Financial’s Proposed Sale to Chinese Conglomerate. Fannie Mae has approved Arch Capital’s acquisition of ...

PHH Corp., the Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have, in recent weeks, gone back and forth with the filing of briefs on multiple angles associated with the legal dispute the lender has had with the CFPB over alleged violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. However, it looks like the separation of powers under the U.S. Constitution will play a more decisive role in the outcome than will issues related to RESPA, according to some top legal observers. PHH and the DOJ both submitted responses to the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals on Dec. 22, the deadline set by the court. The government is seeking an en banc review by the full appeals court of a ruling by a three-judge panel. In its brief, the mortgage lender said...

The long-running legal confrontation between PHH Corp. and the CFPB took another turn right before the holidays, with the nation’s eighth largest lender telling the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals that its three-judge panel got it right in October when it ruled the CFPB’s leadership structure is unconstitutional. “The panel grounded its decision in existing Supreme Court precedent and other settled authority,” the company said. “It remedied a violation of the separation of powers by allowing the agency to continue to operate subject to basic constitutional constraints, without addressing the decision’s effect on past actions.” Further, “the panel interpreted the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act according to its plain language and consistently with every other circuit to consider ...

The important constitutional issue of separation of powers, and the perhaps somewhat unorthodox manner in which the three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the CFPB’s leadership structure is unconstitutional, justify the court granting the bureau’s request for a rehearing en banc in its dispute with PHH Corp., the U.S. Justice Department told the court. “The conferral of broad policymaking and enforcement authority on a single person below the president, whom the president may not remove except for cause ... raises a significant constitutional question that the Supreme Court has not yet squarely confronted,” the DOJ said. To date, the nation’s highest court has sanctioned a limitation on the power to remove principal officers ...

Depending on how the PHH Corp. v. CFPB case shakes out, the bureau’s rulemaking abilities will likely be severely challenged by the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump. In a recent client note, Barbara Mishkin, of counsel in the Philadelphia office of the Ballard Spahr law firm, pointed out how Trump’s selection of Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-SC, as his nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) could become a major impediment for the bureau in its effort to crank out new regulations going forward. “Mr. Mulvaney has been described as a staunch deficit hawk and his nomination is viewed as sending a signal that federal regulations are likely to face tough scrutiny in a Trump administration,” ...

Numerous experts, commenters and observers are under the assumption that President-elect Trump will have to let the courts reach a definitive legal decision on the PHH Corp. v. CFPB litigation before deciding whether to remove CFPB Director Richard Cordray without cause. However, that’s not the case, according to Aditya Bamzai, associate professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law. In a recent online blog post, Bamzai said the (sometimes unstated) premise in various articles and reports is that the CFPB’s pending challenge to the panel decision somehow prevents any attempt to oust Cordray. “Such a premise appears to rest on two mistaken assumptions: that the president cannot exercise his removal authority absent an Article III judgment authorizing ...

A handful of industry groups representing banks and credit unions wrote to Senate leaders recently, making the case for switching the leadership structure of the CFPB from a single director to a multi-member commission, which was how the bureau was initially envisioned by early advocates such as Elizabeth Warren, then an adviser to President Obama. In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, and Minority Leader-elect Chuck Schumer, D-NY, the Consumer Bankers Association, the Credit Union National Association, the Independent Community Bankers of America, and the National Association of Federal Credit Unions urged lawmakers to pass legislation to create a five-person, bipartisan board to govern the bureau. “The CFPB is an independent regulatory agency that provides the sole ...

Mortgage-related issues will be a big component of the CFPB’s fair lending priorities for 2017, the bureau indicated in an online blog post late last year. Among the issues for the mortgage industry are redlining and servicing. “While the bureau has taken important strides in our efforts to protect consumers from credit discrimination and broaden access to credit, we continue to identify new and emerging fair lending risks and we will monitor institutions for compliance,” said Patrice Ficklin, associate director of the CFPB’s Office of Fair Lending. Going forward, then, the bureau is increasing its focus in three key areas, the first of which is redlining. “We will continue to evaluate whether lenders have intentionally avoided lending in minority neighborhoods,” ...

CFPB Again Moves Against Finance Company. Late last month, the CFPB took its second legal action against Military Credit Services, LLC, a Norfolk, VA-based finance company, accusing the company of making loans with improper disclosures.... TransUnion Agrees to $19.4 Million Settlement. TransUnion, one of the largest credit reporting agencies in the U.S., has agreed to settle a dispute with the CFPB over the company’s practices related to the advertising, marketing and sale of consumer reports, credit scores or credit marketing products to consumers, the firm said in a recent Form 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission....

One of the most speculative stock bets out there – buying shares in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – is looking more like a sure thing these days, thanks to the recent pick of Mick Mulvaney, R-SC, to head the Office of Management and Budget in the new Trump administration. At least that’s how some industry officials and market watchers view it, including the Washington-based research firm Cowen & Co. In a report issued earlier this week, Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg called the choice of Mulvaney for OMB chief “the most bullish sign yet that the Donald Trump administration will favor a solution to housing finance reform that includes a continued role for Fannie and Freddie.”