In the weeks leading up to the effective date of the CFPB’s integrated disclosure rule, the agency’s director, Richard Cordray, made clear that, from a supervisory perspective, the bureau would view enforcement of the rule as more diagnostic than punitive – an approach many industry officials believe should continue. In commenting on the CFPB’s proposed rule to clarify a number of aspects of TRID, the Mortgage Bankers Association strongly urged the current diagnostic examination approach be formally extended until the changes necessitated by a final rule have been fully implemented and it is clear that the compliance difficulties with such a complex rule have been largely resolved. “With this policy and the bureau’s and industry’s active engagement as compliance moves forward ...

Many elements of the mortgage finance industry took up the primary concern that real estate agents have had with the CFPB’s integrated disclosure rule since it first took effect: the sharing of the closing disclosure with third parties. In their recent comments to the bureau on its TRID clarifying proposal, multiple industry players said they were glad to see the agency addressed this issue somewhat; however, more must be done. The National Association of Realtors, for instance, told the bureau that one of the unintended consequences of the integrated disclosure rule has been lenders’ reluctance to share the new required CD with real estate professionals out of fear of liability for disclosing clients’ nonpublic personal information.“Regulation P, which governs ...

A number of industry software and technology vendors told the CFPB they must have a minimum of one year to fully test and comply with all the changes the agency wants to implement with its TRID clarifying proposed rule. Computer systems and software vendor Jack Henry & Associates said that due to the nature of these proposed changes (which will require revisions to forms, calculations and logic in the software), the industry needs an absolute minimum of 12 months for its implementation period. “Software providers such as Jack Henry & Associates work with multiple business partners and need lead time to analyze, plan, design, develop, test, document and distribute software changes to our financial institution clients prior to the implementation ...

Comments by CFPB Director Richard Cordray at last week’s Mortgage Bankers Association conference in Boston indicate that the industry can expect the bureau’s diagnostic approach to enforcing the TRID rule will continue, apparently until further notice. “As I told you last year, in our examination work around compliance with this rule, we and the other regulators have pledged to be sensitive to the progress made by lenders that are squarely focused on making good faith efforts to come into compliance with the rule on time,” Cordray said. “We have also said that our approach would be diagnostic and corrective, not punitive. That is precisely what we are doing.” This means that the regulators will evaluate a company’s compliance management system ...

The CFPB said last week it will issue warning letters to 44 residential lenders and mortgage brokers that are not properly collecting Home Mortgage Disclosure Act information – data that helps the agency uncover discriminatory lending practices – and advised them to review their practices and step up their compliance efforts, if need be. The bureau said it has information that appears to show they may be required to collect, record and report data about their housing-related lending activity, and that they may be in violation of those requirements. The CFPB said it identified the 44 companies by reviewing available bank and nonbank mortgage data. The identities of the 44 firms were not provided by the agency. “Financial institutions that fail to ...

Mortgage servicers are going to have to bring their “A” game more consistently to the table if they wish to avoid punitive actions from the CFPB, the bureau’s director, Richard Cordray, made clear recently. Speaking to the attendees of the Mortgage Bankers Association conference in Boston last week, the nation’s top consumer regulator said it is regrettable that much of the damage done during the financial crisis to consumers and the broader economy could likely have been contained early on by more effective servicing. “A more effective system might have been up to the task of working with struggling borrowers to find appropriate ways to avoid foreclosure through loan modifications and short sales,” Cordray said. “But servicers were ill prepared ...

One little noticed provision of the CFPB’s recent proposal on disclosures of records and information would constrain regulated entities from sharing information about when they are being investigated by the CFPB – a concept industry representatives strongly oppose. More specifically, the proposal would restrict individual entities that are the subject of a civil investigative demand (CID) from voluntarily disclosing the receipt of such a demand, which is confidential investigative information (CII), without first getting permission from the CFPB. In a joint comment letter submitted to the CFPB, the Consumer Mortgage Coalition, the Credit Union National Association, the Independent Community Bankers of America, the Mortgage Bankers Association, and the National Association of Federal Credit Unions said they strongly oppose this component of ...

Another burr under the industry’s saddle stemming from the CFPB’s recent proposal on disclosures of records and information is a proposed significant expansion of the bureau’s ability to share confidential supervisory information (CSI) with other agencies or entities. Under current rules, the bureau may disclose CSI only to the small set of federal and state agencies that have “jurisdiction over a supervised financial institution.” However, the bureau has proposed disseminating CSI to any “federal, state or foreign governmental authority, or an entity exercising governmental authority” whenever “it is relevant to the exercise of the agency’s statutory or regulatory authority.” This is extremely problematic to the industry, according to a joint comment letter submitted to the CFPB by the Consumer Mortgage ...

TRID Implementation Inconsistency Among Lenders Continues to Drive Title Agent Costs. The First American Real Estate Sentiment Index for the third quarter of 2016 found that lenders are inconsistently implementing the CPFB’s integrated disclosure rule, and that is driving up costs for title agents.... Mortgage Complaints Still High, But Drop Noticeably in 3Q16 From Year-Ago Levels. The latest monthly consumer complaint report from the CFPB found that mortgages remain among the top three sore spots for borrowers, but had a noticeable drop from the third quarter of 2015 to the same period this year....

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray said agency examiners are conducting “transaction testing” to assess compliance with new TRID disclosure rules. Looking at loan files is necessary to a diagnostic compliance assessment, he told a good-sized audience at this week’s annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association. The bureau chief repeated earlier assertions that TRID compliance reviews would be “diagnostic and corrective, not punitive.” Cordray said...