On September 23, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that on April 7, 2016 it had entered into a settlement with a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) approved lender over allegations that the lender violated FHA underwriting requirements. The lender participated in HUD’s direct endorsement lender program, which…
On September 22, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California issued a permanent injunction prohibiting five defendants involved in mortgage relief scams from mortgage loan modification and debt relief business. The FTC brought a lawsuit against the five defendants in…
*Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared on our sister blog, Consumer Finance Enforcement Watch. Visit CFEW for more real-time reporting on the full range of public federal and state consumer finance enforcement activity.* Goodwin’s Mike Whalen, a partner in the Technology Group and co-leader of the Fintech practice; and Levi Swank, an…
Goodwin’s Mike Whalen, a partner in the Technology Group and co-leader of the Fintech practice; and Levi Swank, an associate in the Financial Industry and Consumer Financial Services Litigation practices, were published in the September 2016 issue of Mortgage Banking for their article, Servicing Remains An Enforcement Target. The article…
On September 7, 2016, the Massachusetts Attorney General announced a settlement with an insurance company requiring “refunds for Massachusetts homeowners whose mortgage lenders wrongly force-placed the consumers with [the insurance company] despite the fact that the consumers already had home insurance with other companies, as well as consumers who were…
On September 7, 2016, the Massachusetts Attorney General (“AG”) announced that it reached a settlement with a Massachusetts force-placed insurance company relating to allegations that it improperly charged homeowners for insurance. According to the Massachusetts AG, mortgage lenders improperly provided homeowners with duplicative force-placed insurance policies through the subject insurance…
On August 12, the Massachusetts Division of Banks made public its second quarter enforcement actions, including a consent order that it had entered into on April 21 with a California-based mortgage lender and broker concerning its alleged practice of charging borrowers per diem interest between the funding date of the loan and the date the funds…
On August 5, an Alabama bank announced in its quarterly report that it reached an agreement in principal on a settlement amount with the Department of Justice (DOJ) on behalf of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The settlement will resolve an investigation into the bank’s residential mortgage…
On July 29, 2016, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a settlement with a bank concerning allegations that they denied loan approval to a woman on maternity leave in violation of the Fair Housing Act (FHA). The woman had applied for a home equity line of credit, but the bank allegedly told…
On August 3, 2016, Goodwin filed an amicus brief in the Washington Supreme Court on behalf of the Mortgage Bankers Association and the Consumer Mortgage Coalition. The case—Jordan v. Nationstar Mortgage LLC—involved a challenge to a servicer’s default-servicing practice of rekeying the lock on the front door of seemingly abandoned…
With the end of the Department of Treasury’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) coming in January 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) has released a set of four principles for financial institutions to use when considering how to help a borrower avoid foreclosure. These principals are intended “to complement ongoing…
On July 29, 2016, the CFPB issued a new proposed rule, which is intended to clarify and ease compliance with certain provisions of the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule. The proposed rule tweaks TRID in many minor ways, but the CFPB highlighted four major changes in the proposed rule, which…
On June 29, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CPPB) and Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a joint enforcement action against a regional bank for alleged discriminatory mortgage lending in violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) and the Fair Housing Act (FHA), filed in the District Court for the…
On June 22, 2016, the CFPB issued a Mortgage Servicing Supervisory Highlights Special Edition Report, and concluded that mortgage servicers may be violating the servicing rules that the CFPB enacted in January 2014, as a result of servicers’ continued reliance on ineffective technology. In addition, the press release accompanying the…
On June 8, 2016, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced it entered into a settlement agreement with a national bank over allegations the bank engaged in discriminatory lending practices in violation of the Fair Housing Act. According to HUD, the bank discriminated against African American, Latino American and…
On May 26, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it had entered into a consent order with a former loan officer of a national bank, whom the CFPB alleges increased the number of loans he sold by creating a mortgage fee-shifting scheme. The consent order alleged that the loan…
On May 25, the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC) entered a consent order with a national bank stemming from allegations that the bank violated a 2011 consent order concerning its mortgage servicing related activities. The OCC alleged that the bank had violated the consent order during the period from October 1,…
On May 19, 2016, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it filed a lawsuit against a national mortgage company relating to the company’s participation in the Direct Endorsement Lender Program of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insurance program. A qui tam plaintiff…
On May 13, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it has reached a $64 million settlement agreement with a national bank relating to the bank’s participation in the Direct Endorsement Lender Program of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The agreement resolves claims that were originally brought…
On May 5, 2016, the Pennsylvania Attorney General announced the filing of a civil lawsuit in the Clinton County (PA) Court of Common Pleas against an Ohio financial services company and its owner for misleading at least four Pennsylvania consumers, including three military veterans. The lawsuit states that the company catered specifically to…