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…
On May 4, 2016, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) announced that a California man was found guilty of defrauding over 30,000 homeowners out of $31 million through a large mortgage modification scheme. The defendant was…
On April 25, 2016, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that it entered into a settlement agreement with a regional bank over allegations the bank engaged in discriminatory lending practices in violation of the Fair Housing Act. According to HUD, the bank discriminated against racial minorities by refusing…
On April 15, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that a mortgage company settled claims it violated the False Claims Act by originating and underwriting mortgage loans insured by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Federal Housing Administration (FHA) that failed to comply with certain requirements for the FHA insurance program. The settlement…
On April 14, 2016, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced two changes concerning its policies affecting delinquent mortgage loans: first, it announced that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will offer mortgage principal reductions to certain borrowers who are seriously delinquent and underwater, and second, it announced new enhancements to…
On April 12, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral argument in the first appeal of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) administrative enforcement ruling, which ordered a mortgage lender to disgorge $109 million for alleged violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act…
On April 8, 2016, the Department of Justice (DOJ) officially announced a $1.2 billion settlement with a national bank and one of its executives relating to the bank’s participation in the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Direct Endorsement Lender Program. As part of the settlement agreement, the bank acknowledged that between the period of May…
On April 1, 2016, the CFPB published its monthly consumer complaint snapshot. See generally, CFPB Monthly Complaint Rep., Apr. 2016. In addition to highlighting trends in consumer complaints received by the CFPB, the April report spotlights mortgage loan-related complaints. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the spotlight shows that 82% of the complaints received…
On April 1, 2016, the California Attorney General announced that it filed suit against a prominent investment bank for alleged “misrepresentations about complex investments such as residential mortgage-backed securities, in which large pools of home loans were packaged together and sold to investors.” The eight-count complaint, which was filed in…
In a March 23, 2016 proposal titled “A More Promising Road to GSE Reform“, several prominent policy commentators recently outlined their suggested plan for reforming the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) and the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), which—according to these analysts—are “two enormously important yet flawed institutions”…
On March 15, 2016, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) announced final changes to its loan-level certification form, 92900-A HUD/VA Addendum to the Uniform Residential Loan Application. The announcement represents important and highly-anticipated changes to the FHA’s required certification. The FHA’s loan-level certification form, which the lender completes for every loan…