Industry Anxiety at a Fever Pitch? Or Just Good Public Relations? The new TRID rule, which became active on Saturday, may only be the tip of the regulatory iceberg, according to sister publication IMFnews. Several lenders interviewed readily admitted that the new TILA/RESPA disclosures are definitely easier to understand. That’s the good news. “The bad news is that they feel the CFPB continues to miss their central message: that incorporating technology changes to their systems to make TRID happen on time has been an operational nightmare, and they feel that Director Richard Cordray has been hardly sympathetic to their plight,” the publication reported late last week. Although the TRID headache may be eased (for now) thanks to a letter that ...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has yet to clarify what it doesn’t like about “marketing service agreements” between originators and Realtors, and the less the agency talks about the topic – publicly, at least – the more lenders fear that eventually the regulator will try to eliminate such agreements altogether. To date, at least two lenders – Wells Fargo and Prospect Mortgage – have announced they are ending their MSAs, but sources indicate that several firms have undergone CFPB audits (or soon will) with a special emphasis on how they manage business referrals with realty companies and how much money changes hands. Inside Mortgage Finance has learned...

It looks like the mortgage industry is on the verge of obtaining another concession from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau regarding enforcement of its pending integrated disclosure rule. The rule will streamline the consumer disclosures required under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. This TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule is slated to take effect Oct. 3, 2015, and will create a new regulatory regime – and perhaps a good bit of havoc in the process, at least in the short term. The anxiety over the confusion and expected delays has prompted...

The CFPB is committed to helping the mortgage industry fully implement the pending TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule to the maximum extent possible, and its examination approach will focus on being “diagnostic” and “corrective,” not “gotcha” oriented, a top bureau official said during an industry conference early this week. Speaking at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s 2015 regulatory compliance conference in Washington, DC, Diane Thompson, managing counsel in the bureau’s Office of Regulations, tried to reassure anxious lender representatives about the industry’s transition to a dramatically different lending environment under the new regulatory regime. “We understand that this is a major change ... that we are not going to flip some magic switch on Oct. 3 and the world will suddenly ...

As the pending Oct. 3, 2015, effective date for the CFPB’s integrated disclosure rule approaches, both the bureau and industry groups issued last-minute guides and other materials to help various sectors comply as effectively as possible. The rule is intended to harmonize and integrate the disclosures required under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act; hence the term “TRID,” an acronym for the more formal TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule. Last week, on the lender front, the bureau released three supervisory publications that have been updated to reflect the new TRID effective date. They include the interagency TILA and RESPA examination procedures, developed in coordination with the members of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council Consumer ...

Multiple Issues With TRID Remain, Official Says. Mortgage Bankers Association Vice Chairman Rodrigo Lopez told attendees at the group’s Risk Management, Quality Assurance and Fraud Prevention Forum in Dallas recently that the MBA supports additional disclosures, but that “many issues remain to be resolved” when it comes to the TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule. “So far, the CFPB has provided only limited guidance on the new rules,” he noted. “MBA is urging the CFPB to resolve a number of issues, including differences between state and federal laws, that threaten to add layers of complexity to the mortgage loan process.” Lopez went on to say that legislation in Congress that would provide mortgage lenders with a safe harbor for their good-faith ...

The real estate finance industry is not opposed to more simplified mortgage disclosures for consumers. But the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s integrated disclosure rule as it’s now written will cost the industry billions of dollars every year, one industry official warned. The rule, intended to harmonize and integrate the disclosures required under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, is slated to become effective on Oct. 3, 2015, a scant two weeks away. “If left and implemented as is, TRID will require...

With the effective date of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s integrated disclosure rule now just weeks away, industry representatives are escalating the amount of compliance advice they are offering to real estate agents and lenders. This week, the Mortgage Bankers Association released a variety of materials to facilitate complete conformity with the bureau’s pending disclosure rule under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act ...

The Oct. 3, 2015, effective date for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s integrated disclosure rule is just weeks away, leaving the mortgage industry a shrinking window of time in which to convince members of Congress and the White House to provide regulatory relief. Although Republicans likely have enough votes to force a multi-prong regulatory relief bill through both chambers of Congress, the Obama administration appears to remain opposed, even if the White House has been sitting on the sidelines and completely disengaged. “On the TRID [implementation] extension, there’s...

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the CFPB on its interpretation of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, but refused to “give deference” to the amicus brief in which the bureau’s argument was presented. “Here, CFPB is interpreting the statute, not the regulation. An agency’s interpretation of the statute – when presented in an amicus brief – is not promulgated in the exercise of its formal rulemaking authority, so no … deference is warranted,” ruled the court. Further, even if certain terms in the statute also appear in the regulation, the CFPB “is in fact interpreting Congress’s words in the statute, so we give no deference to CFPB’s interpretation,” the court said. “In addition, because the statutory terms at issue ...