Mortgage lenders and their agents – an appraisal management company, for example – will need to ensure they are paying “customary and reasonable fees” to appraisers or suffer steep fines for violating the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act’s appraisal provisions, said the Appraisal Institute. Title XIV of the Dodd-Frank Act amends...
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The mortgage banking industry urged the Department of Housing and Urban Development to give priority to harmonizing disclosures under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and the Truth in Lending Act and to deal with the issue of “required use” later in the context of wide-ranging reform. The Mortgage Bankers Association reiterated its previous concern that...
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State regulators and fair lending advocates are calling for changes in the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data reporting requirements to improve detection of discriminatory lending patterns and monitoring of loan originators’ movements across state lines. Testifying at one of the Federal Reserve’s four scheduled public hearings on updating HMDA regulations, state banking and state mortgage regulators urged...
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Financial institutions called upon federal banking regulators to be more flexible and give more credit to “community development” activities and to refrain from using the Community Reinvestment Act as an anti-discrimination enforcement tool. In recent public hearings on modernizing CRA regulations, industry groups and individual banks urged...
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The mortgage banking industry has alerted the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to an apparent conflict between the EEOC’s hiring policy and the licensing and registration requirements for mortgage loan originators under the Secure and Fair Enforcement for Mortgage Licensing Act. In a letter, the Mortgage Bankers Association said...
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Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has charged a mortgage loan servicer with using illegal debt collection practices, as well as misleading and deceiving distressed borrowers about its loan modification program. Abbott accused American Home Mortgage Servicing of violating the Texas Debt Collections Act and the Texas Deceptive Trades-Consumer Protection Act (DTPA) with its alleged use of...
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The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s internal watchdog urged the department to discontinue the practice of deferring foreclosure when an FHA borrower fails to pay taxes and insurance and to put a plan in place to minimize the risk of future defaults due to such nonpayment. HUD’s Office of the Inspector General recommended...
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New Jersey. The state Department of Banking and Insurance issued guidance on Aug. 2 on how mortgage lenders should comply with amended federal regulations governing the Good Faith Estimate and HUD-1 Settlement statement, as well as state settlement disclosure requirements. State regulations currently allow...
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Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council. New CRA Data. Community development lending dropped significantly in 2009 from 2008, as did loan originations under the Community Reinvestment Act, according to the latest government report. Analyzing 2009 CRA data on loan origination and purchases, the FFIEC found...
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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have issued guidance for lenders regarding borrowers who obtained energy retrofit loans under the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) loan programs. PACE loans are made by localities to finance residential energy improvements and are generally repaid through the homeowner’s real estate tax bill. On July 6, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced...
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