Mortgage Company President Charged with Defrauding Ginnie Mae. Robert Pena, president and founder of the now-defunct Mortgage Security Inc., was charged in federal district court in Boston for allegedly bilking Ginnie Mae out of nearly $3 million. MSI was an approved participant in the Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities program, pooling eligible single-family mortgages and selling the securitized products to investors. The firm also serviced the underlying loans. In 2011, Pena allegedly began diverting borrower payments and huge loan-payoff amounts into secret accounts, which he used to fund personal and business activities. Likewise, he is said to have funneled borrowers’ escrow funds and mortgage-insurance premiums into other personal accounts. In total, Pena pocketed $3 million due Ginnie Mae, which had to pay investors whose investments it had guaranteed, according to the ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac introduced a new impasse and management escalation process this week as a middleman between the normal loan dispute appeal process and the final independent dispute resolution (IDR) process for seller/servicers. The government-sponsored enterprises said they hope to resolve as many disputes as possible before any IDR process begins. The GSEs introduced...

New legal requirements enacted in the state of New York in the wake of the financial crisis pose particular compliance challenges for mortgage servicers, according to a new report by analysts at S&P Global Ratings. The S&P team recently reviewed a series of laws the state legislature passed in June that attempts to address several issues related to “zombie” foreclosures, which refers to the phenomenon of a servicer initiating foreclosure on a vacant property but not going so far as to actually take title. Urban community activists complain such properties languish unsold for a prolonged period of time, contributing to neighborhood blight in communities least able to handle it – hence, state lawmakers decided to act.One resulting requirement “imposes conditions ...

One mortgage lender recently inquired of Michael Goldhirsh, director of legal and regulatory compliance for the Lenders Compliance Group, as to whether the definition of “application” in the CFPB’s TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule (TRID) triggers or otherwise affects reporting under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. In a recent blog posting, he replied: “The short answer is that receipt of some or all of the six pieces of TRID application information does not necessarily trigger an application for purposes of HMDA reporting.” Goldhirsh went on to explain that Regulation C defines an application for HMDA reporting purposes as an oral or written request for a home purchase loan, a home improvement loan, or a refinancing that is made in accordance with ...

A New York State Supreme Court judge recently signed off on JPMorgan’s proposed $4.5 billion settlement with a revised list of MBS trusts, while three other Wall Street banks lost in separate bids to have MBS claims against them dismissed. On Aug. 12, Justice Marcy Friedman of the New York State Supreme Court approved JPMorgan’s representation-and-warranties settlement offer for 319 MBS trusts. She concluded that the trustees exercised their discretionary power reasonably and in good faith in accepting the settlement. JPMorgan and a group of 20 large institutional investors that hold approximately 32.5 percent of the securities issued by the MBS trusts negotiated the settlement. Among these prominent investors were Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Bank ...

Recent rulings in Nevada favor the mortgage industry when it comes to super-liens imposed by homeowners associations on loans in foreclosure. Twenty-two states have super-lien laws that allow HOAs to take priority over first mortgages and foreclose the property to collect up to six months of unpaid fees. In 2014, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that an HOA could extinguish a senior mortgage. But the Ninth Circuit Court recently ruled that an HOA foreclosure sale extinguishing the first deed of trust is unconstitutional. In the case of Bourne Valley Trust v. Wells Fargo Bank, the court ruled that Bourne Valley seeking to purchase the property at an HOA foreclosure sale violated the first-lien holder’s due process rights. Attorneys at Bradley ...

With federal civil monetary penalties set to rise significantly over the next couple of months, mortgage industry stakeholders are getting increasingly concerned about retroactivity in some of the interim final rules adopted by federal agencies to implement the revised penalty amounts, according to industry attorneys. Although application of the adjusted civil penalty amounts to violations that occurred prior to the passage of the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment ...

A dispute over which office within the Department of Housing and Urban Development is responsible for tracking and recording certain collections from civil fraud settlements is wreaking havoc on HUD’s accounting of collections and recoveries. In its semiannual report to Congress, HUD’s Office of the Inspector General said it might have to elevate the matter to the HUD deputy secretary for a decision as to which office is responsible for each action. The dispute ...

A ruling late last year by a state appeals court in New York threatens to upend the practice of providing “gap” or “bridge down” representations and warranties on residential MBS, according to a brief submitted on behalf of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. SIFMA asked the New York State Court of Appeals to reverse the lower court’s ruling in Bank of New York Mellon v. WMC Mortgage. Lawyers at the law firm of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan submitted an amicus brief to the N.Y. State Court of Appeals on behalf of SIFMA regarding the case. “The court’s resolution of this issue could have...

JPMorgan Chase is a step closer to settling a dispute with Deutsche Bank and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. over certain mortgage securitization agreements in connection with the government’s takeover of failed mortgage lender Washington Mutual. According to Chase’s most recent 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the firm, Deutsche Bank and the FDIC have signed a term sheet to resolve pending litigation brought by the German bank against Chase and the FDIC in relation to WaMu as well as Chase’s outstanding indemnification claims pursuant to the terms of the purchase-and-assumption agreement with the FDIC. The term sheet is subject...