Compliance & Regulation

Arizona regulators said the primary mortgage insurance subsidiary of The PMI Group, Walnut Creek, Calif., had a $320 million deficit in its policyholder position and that was one of the factors which led to the decision to appoint a supervisor over the company's operations.

Raj Date, who replaced Elizabeth Warren as acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is the keynote speaker at the National Mortgage News Mortgage Regulatory Symposium to be held in Washington on Sept. 20.

Accenture announced its acquisition of Dallas-based mortgage outsourcing provider Zenta Monday, in a move that puts the global consulting and outsourcing provider in the thick of the mortgage origination business and the massive loss mitigation efforts ongoing in the mortgage servicing industry.

A Jacksonville title agent who was the owner of Premier Title Group Inc. has pleaded guilty to bank fraud last Friday afternoon for serving as the closing agent during a mortgage fraud scheme.

The loan-limit countdown has begun. In lieu of lower loan limits on conforming loans and mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration, some lenders have already stopped taking applications for financing in amounts above $625,500.

California attorney general Kamala Harris and the state's Department of Justice have taken legal action against several attorneys and law firms who used a fraudulent scheme to steal millions of dollars from distressed homeowners.

As part of an undercover investigation called “Operation Madhouse” conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of Inspector General and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, 13 individuals have been arrested in Chicago for participating in a mortgage fraud scheme carrying out three separate transactions involving four homes on the city's south side.

Talal Ashek of Holland pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to submit false claims to a lending institution for his role in a mortgage fraud conspiracy. Sentencing will take place on Oct.17, before U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake.

The founder, president and CEO of Triton Financial LLC, Kurt Barton, faces a life sentence in prison after a federal jury convicted him of carrying out a Ponzi scheme that victimized more than 300 individuals that resulted in investor losses of over $50 million.

It seems more mortgage brokers are receiving notices from the FDIC that they may be sued for delivering bad loans to failed banks that were major wholesalers.