The mortgage industry is leery of a strategy proposed by Special Advisor Elizabeth Warren that relies on “crowd-sourcing technology” to help the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection target its rulemaking and enforcement efforts. Warren, named by President Obama to organize the bureau from the ground up, proposed the use of...
Read More
A recent survey of mortgage transaction participants found no significant increase in closing costs as a result of the new good faith estimate, but industry reaction to the findings so far has been mixed. Conducted by Ernst Publishing Co., a provider of recording fee and transfer tax data to lenders and title insurers, the survey polled...
Read More
Industry lobbyists are expecting no serious effort from the new Republican-led House of Representatives to repeal the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, although there may be efforts to restrict the funding of regulatory agencies in implementing the new law. In areas where the new Congress believes...
Read More
Mortgage lenders urged the Federal Trade Commission to delay the issuance of a rule on mortgage advertising and work with the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection and the Federal Reserve Board in integrating and implementing a set of unfair-and-deceptive-practices rules. The FTC’s proposed rule would prevent...
Read More
Faced with a deluge of new rules and regulations, a coalition of financial services industry trade groups called for a coordinated, orderly process to ensure the success of efforts to integrate and simplify Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and Truth in Lending Act disclosures. Such an approach would necessitate...
Read More
A mortgage document that lists the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, or MERS, as a nominee, but does not identify the actual holder of the security will not be sufficient to begin a foreclosure action in the District of Columbia, according to Washington, DC, Attorney General Peter Nickles. In a recent opinion letter, Nickles made clear that...
Read More
Inconsistency in how the Internal Revenue Service processed mortgage foreclosure cases and coordinated with local U.S. Attorneys’ Offices may have caused taxpayers to miss an opportunity to reduce the amount of taxes they owed, according to a new government report. The report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) found...
Read More
Conference of State Bank Supervisors. On Nov. 12, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council announced the appointment of David Cotney to the council’s State Liaison Committee. Cotney, chief operating officer of the Massachusetts Division of Banks, will serve out the remainder of Sarah Bloom Raskin’s two-year term. Raskin recently resigned upon...
Read More
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.Fair Lending Teleconference. The FDIC will host a fair lending teleconference on Nov. 16 to discuss how it conducts reviews of institutions flagged for disparities based on analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. The call also will assist bankers in...
Read More
The American Bankers Association has issued a white paper to debunk assertions that trustees in asset-backed securities are responsible for overseeing mortgage servicers and mediating between them and investors in securitization deals. The paper blames investors, investment advisors, credit ratings agencies and others for spreading the notion that...
Read More