Compliance & Regulation

The vast majority of state disciplinary actions against appraisers are not being reported to the federal appraisal subcommittee, which maintains a national registry of state certified and licensed appraisers.

The special "rocket dockets" established in Florida last year to help slog through the backlog of residential foreclosure filings will be gone as of July 1, potentially paralyzing the already overloaded court system with an influx of cases and delays.

It is well documented that the discovery of fraud and abuse is far more frequently found through chance observation than through formal auditing and oversight, no matter how important those functions obviously are. However, our initial awareness that ethical or legal problems are occurring often has less to so with the actual observation of some type of error in judgment or indiscretion and more to do with some indistinct gut sense that things just don't feel right. Always trust that feeling.

Federal bank regulators need to update their commercial real estate guidance to bring standards more in line with how examiners treat loans following the financial crisis, according to a new oversight report.

Banks will face increased costs and reduced revenues as the federal government drafts and implements a new series of regulations affecting mortgage lending and servicing, according to the Comptroller of the Currency.

The Treasury Department has directed the 20 largest HAMP servicers to establish "relationship managers" who will provide a single point of contact for homeowners seeking a loan modification.

It appears the great debate over altering the minimum servicing fee paid by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is coming to a close with many mortgage professionals hoping that in the end no change whatsoever will be made.

The top regulator of the Federal Housing Finance Agency said Wednesday he won't rush the 12-bank cooperative to correct their balance sheets, but does expect some alteration soon.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is engaging in an exhaustive process of testing and refining a new mortgage disclosure and it is actively seeking industry input to make sure it is easier and less costly to use than the existing Good Faith Estimate and Truth in Lending Act disclosures.

The restoration of the private-label MBS market is being threatened by several regulatory efforts to re-engineer the entire "securitization machine," according to new Congressional testimony from the American Securitization Forum.