Compliance & Regulation

Meredian Financial Corp., a Costa Mesa, Calif.-based mortgage lender and broker, is being sued by Minnesota attorney general Lori Swanson for charging state homeowners thousands of dollars to refinance their mortgages without actually providing consumers the promised services.

Objections raised by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to a recently introduced covered bond bill can be resolved, according to Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner.

Two top Obama administration officials said Tuesday that the government-sponsored enterprises would not be exempted from a pending proposal to help standardize mortgages sold into the secondary market.

Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York have been thinking about how to deal with the four largest mortgage lenders if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were converted into mortgage securitization cooperatives.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is taking an enforcement action against what it calls a "large" lender that forced title agents to cover certain settlement costs that exceeded the amounts initially disclosed on the good faith estimate form.

If settlement talks between the states and residential servicers break down, the nation's megabanks will face the prospect of lawsuits from up to 30 state attorneys general, according to Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I.

A new estimate by the Treasury Department shows the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will cost taxpayers an additional $73 billion through 2021.

A county court in New York ruled in favor of the Bank of New York Mellon's right to foreclose after a delinquent borrower brought a legal challenge to the role of the MERSCorp Inc. in the foreclosure process.

Four major industry trade groups are urging Senate Judiciary Committee members to vote against a bill that allows U.S. bankruptcy courts to set up loss mitigation programs where homeowners and servicers can negotiate a loan modification.

The online hacker group Anonymous has released internal emails from a former employee of a former Bank of America Corp. unit, allegedly showing how the unit tried to hide residential foreclosure information.