Ocwen Financial agreed to a $150 million settlement with the New York Department of Financial Services in late December. Officials at the nonbank said Ocwen’s focus will shift to non-agency servicing and originations in 2015. The settlement includes a number of provisions beyond the monetary penalty. To acquire mortgage servicing rights – the fuel for Ocwen’s dramatic growth in recent years – Ocwen must receive approval from the NYDFS and meet performance benchmarks. The NYDFS will also appoint...

Despite reduced guaranty limits in more than 80 counties, recent changes to the VA mortgage limits in 2015 will have no material impact on veteran borrowers or hurt credit availability, according to industry analysts. In enacting the omnibus spending bill, Congress reduced the maximum size of mortgages guaranteed by the VA, matching it to the $625,500 high-cost loan limits for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA. The change took effect on Jan. 1, 2015, affecting 82 counties, some seeing as much as a 40 percent reduction in the VA loan limit. For example, loan limits in the New York area fell by 36.1 percent and in the Washington, DC, area, lenders saw a 9.7 percent decline, according to estimates by the Urban Institute. The VA home loan program does not require a downpayment and the guaranty is limited to 25 percent of the loan amount. In certain cases, the program allows a veteran to ...

The FHA rarely talks about its lender and loan review process in detail but in the latest issue of Lender Insight the agency discusses how it is done and how it selects targets for each review. FHA’s overall counterparty quality-control efforts are divided into lender-monitoring reviews, nonperforming loan reviews, post-endorsement technical reviews of performing loans, post-endorsement technical reviews of early payment defaults (EPD), early cohort claim reviews and lender self-reports. For lender-monitoring reviews, the FHA uses a targeting methodology that takes into account loan volume, default/claim rates, participation in specific FHA loan programs, servicer loss-mitigation performance and certain other factors. Loans are selected to determine compliance with FHA requirements. The Quality Assurance Division (QAD) in the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Single-Family ...

The FHA has temporarily suspended publication of its Quarterly Loan Review Findings Report, which contains the results of all post-endorsement technical reviews (PETRs) conducted by the FHA during a particular quarter. The suspension will give the FHA sufficient time to “recalibrate how the report is run” as well as improve the report, the agency explained. The report is currently published in Lender Insight, a quarterly publication that contains information from the FHA’s Office of Lender Activities and Program Compliance. Specifically, the report contains charts that divide PETRs findings into five main categories. Each chart lists the top five underwriting errors in each category for each review period. The FHA said it is working to display the results in a more user-friendly, actionable manner. It did not say when the quarterly report will be ...

Two FHA lenders have agreed to separate settlements with the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to resolve allegations of mortgage fraud that resulted in huge losses for HUD. Golden First Mortgage Corp. and its owner/president, David Movtady, have agreed to a $36.3 million settlement with the DOJ to resolve allegations they had lied to the FHA about the quality of loans they had certified for FHA insurance since July 2007. Consequently, the agency incurred more than $12 million in losses since that time, according to court documents. Filed in April 2013 in Manhattan federal court and amended in August 2013, the government complaint sought damages and penalties under the False Claims Act and the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act against Golden First for years of misconduct as an FHA direct-endorsement lender. Golden First was a ...

FHA borrowers who refinance through the agency’s Home Affordable Modification Program will also be eligible to earn $5,000 in the sixth year of their performing, modified loan, subject to the Department of the Treasury’s guidelines, the FHA has announced. The incentive to FHA-HAMP borrowers is one of several enhancements to the Making Home Affordable program that the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Treasury Department unveiled in December last year. The enhancements were designed to motivate homeowners in MHA to continue making timely mortgage payments, strengthen the safety net for those still facing financial hardships, and help them build equity in their homes. Under the revised HAMP guidelines, all homeowners in the program become eligible to earn $5,000 in the sixth year of their loan modification. This means a borrower’s outstanding principal balance could ...

FHA reverse mortgage production fell during the first nine months of 2014 compared to same period in the prior year due to changes made by the agency to the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program. The nine-month HECM volume stood at $10.1 billion as of Sept. 30, down 14.8 percent from the previous nine-month period in 2013, according to an Inside FHA Lending analysis of agency data. Volume also fell 9.8 percent on a quarter-to-quarter basis. HECM purchase loans accounted for 93.5 percent of the market while a large majority, 77.0 percent, appeared to favor adjustable-rate reverse mortgages over fixed-rate reverse mortgages. Limited maximum draws in the first year and reduction of principal limit factors – actions taken by HUD to improve the HECM program – significantly decreased the demand for HECM products compared with ... [ 1 chart ]

SunTrust Banks started off the new year reliving the pain of the last six years since the financial crisis by revealing it plans to take yet another financial hit – this time, a $145 million legal expense in its fourth quarter results tied to legacy mortgage issues. In a Form 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission early this week, David Wisniewski, deputy general counsel, said the bank was taking the charge “to increase legal reserves and complete the final resolution of one matter. Accordingly, based on current information, the company expects its estimate of reasonably possible losses related to legal matters, in excess of reserves, to decrease by approximately this amount.” Wisniewski did not specify...

Most of the mortgage fraud investigations in 2013 that involved industry professionals were about misrepresentations on loan documents, evidence that the market remains fertile for fraud, according to a new LexisNexis report. Focusing on proven incidences of fraud, the report found that the share of loans investigated in 2013 for misrepresentation on the credit report, credit history or references rose to 17 percent from 5 percent in 2012. Notably, property valuation fraud ...

With Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on solid financial footing in terms of earnings, some factions of the mortgage industry believe the two should be allowed to rebuild capital by retaining some of their profits. But getting there would require a hard push from the White House, and the approval of the Treasury Department, which controls the senior preferred stock of the two. In a recent letter to Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Melvin Watt ...