Fairholme Funds officials this week continued to press their case for restoring shareholder rights for private investors in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, expressing hope that the incoming Trump administration will be friendlier to their cause. In Fairholme Funds Inc. v. United States, et al, the plaintiffs argue that the net worth sweep imposed by the Treasury Department and Federal Housing Finance Agency was illegal and that the two government-sponsored enterprises were not in a “death spiral” at the time of the bailout as the government claims. During a conference call this week, Fairholme CEO Bruce Berkowitz said...

Three financial-industry trade associations submitted a joint amici brief to the Supreme Court of the U.S. seeking an end to the confusion over whether extender statutes that refer only to the “statute of limitations” should apply to the “statute of repose” as well. The circuit courts are split on the issue, with four courts deviating from a 2014 SCOTUS ruling in CTS v. Waldburger, in which property owners tried to hold CTS Corp., operator of an electronic plant in North Carolina, liable for damages from toxic contaminants on the land. The property owners filed...

The FY 2016 Actuarial Review showed a stronger FHA mortgage insurance fund, thanks to a surging forward loan portfolio, but the prospect of a price adjustment remains unlikely. Review results were a mixture of good news and bad news. The good news is the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund’s economic net worth grew by $3.8 billion to $27.6 billion – $4.2 billion short of what last year’s actuarial report projected. The capital ratio rose to 2.32 percent, exceeding the 2.0 percent minimum established by Congress to cover future losses. Observers said the increases demonstrate steady but modest growth in the fund. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s top officials credited the fund’s growth to a stronger forward-mortgage portfolio, which increased by $18 billion to $35.3 billion – $10.1 billion above projections – with a capital ratio of 3.28 percent. The report attributed the increase to a ...

The Department of Justice lost its bid to have an FHA lawsuit against Quicken Loans heard in the nation’s capital after a federal judge this week ordered the case transferred to federal district court in Michigan. Judge Reggie Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia agreed with Quicken that the proper forum for adjudicating the government’s False Claims Act case is the Eastern District Court in downtown Detroit. While the court agreed that the case has national implications, it also noted the “strong local interest in this matter in the Eastern District of Michigan,” where “Quicken Loans underwrote the FHA loans at issue, endorsed those loans, and certified its compliance as to those loans.” While certain factors weighed against the transfer, the alleged unlawful activity occurred in or near Detroit, where the lender is headquartered and most of its employees are located. The case, U.S. v. Quicken Loans, ...

Aggressive refinance solicitation can be a double-edged sword for lenders: It could either result in increased VA refi business or, as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found out, consumer complaints. Since the CFPB began taking mortgage-related complaints in 2012, it has received more than 12,500 complaints from servicemembers, veterans, and their families. Of those complaints, 1,800 were related to VA refinancing. The VA offers two types of refinancing options to eligible borrowers – the VA cash-out refinance and the VA streamline refi, or Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan (IRRRL). In a cash-out refi, the veteran homeowner can refinance a VA or non-VA loan into a lower-rate VA loan and take cash out of home equity to pay off a debt, finance an educational pursuit or pay for a home improvement. The VA will guaranty up to the full value of the home. On the other hand, an IRRRL can only refinance a ...

State housing finance agencies’ downpayment assistance poses minimal risk to the FHA, and the scope of the problem is nowhere near the size suggested by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s inspector general, according to a new study by the Urban Institute. The study’s conclusion would appear to bolster HUD’s defense of permissible downpayment assistance in a disagreement with the agency’s inspector general. The dispute arose from an IG audit of NOVA Financial & Investment Corp., an originator of FHA-insured mortgages with downpayment assistance provided by state housing finance agencies (HFAs). In a July 2015 report on NOVA’s audit, the IG alleged that some HFAs were allowing downpayment assistance that was being paid for through higher mortgage rates, in violation of FHA requirements for downpayment assistance. It also put FHA’s mortgage insurance fund at ...

Industry Groups Urge Congressional Leaders to Pass ‘Tax Extenders’ Legislation. Three industry groups called upon House and Senate leaders to pass “tax extenders” legislation, including two critical tax provisions that are scheduled to expire at the end of 2016. In a joint letter this week, the Mortgage Bankers Association, National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Home Builders called for the “rapid enactment” of a broad “tax extenders” package, including mortgage-debt forgiveness and tax deduction for mortgage insurance premiums. Passing a legislative package of tax extenders that includes the two provisions would provide much-needed certainty to the residential real estate markets, the letter said. Federal Agencies Propose Rule to Expand Access to Private Flood Insurance. Federal banking and credit union regulators and the Farm Credit Administration have published a ...

Last week’s surprise presidential victory by Republican billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump means some big changes for rulemaking and enforcement activities at the CFPB, to the benefit of the financial services industry, according to the consensus of a variety of analysts and experts. The most likely changes have to do with replacing the bureau’s single director leadership structure a bipartisan commission, and subjecting the agency to the congressional appropriations process. But the tenure of the current director, Richard Cordray, also could come into play, some feel. FBR & Co. analyst Edward Mills and his team predict the agency will have a new director “following the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling [involving PHH Corp.] that allows the president to ...

The CFPB’s latest supervisory highlights report provides some Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data collection and reporting reminders for 2017. For starters, beginning with HMDA data collected in 2017 and submitted in 2018, responsibility to receive and process HMDA data will transfer from the Federal Reserve Board to the CFPB. “The HMDA agencies have agreed that a covered institution filing HMDA data collected in or after 2017 with the CFPB will be deemed to have submitted the HMDA data to the appropriate federal agency,” the bureau stated. (The HMDA agencies are the CFPB, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Fed, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.) ...

The recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in the dispute between the CFPB and PHH Corp. has some significant enforcement implications for the bureau, according to a top compliance attorney. At stake in particular is the bureau’s authority to enforce federal consumer financial protection laws as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA) prohibition of unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices (UDAAP). In a recent client note, Barbara Mishkin, of counsel in the Philadelphia office of the Ballard Spahr law firm, noted that among the court’s findings was that the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act’s three-year statute of limitations (SOL) applies to the agency’s administrative enforcement actions. “Not only did ...