Compliance & Regulation

New York Life Insurance Co., TIAA-CREF, the French bank Dexia and other institutional investors joined the list of bondholders seeking compensation from Bank of America Corp. over MBS losses they suffered from buying nonprime bonds from Countrywide Financial Corp.

On January 19, Colorado had 3,614 licensed and approved loan officers, a 25% decline from just two weeks earlier, a sign that new licensing and testing requirements are weeding out professionals in the industry.

The Treasury Department on Monday confirmed what most mortgage lobbyists have been anticipating for months — that the White House's long-awaited report on restructuring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (and the U.S. housing finance system in general) will be delayed until mid-February.

Investors, as well as issuers of mortgage-backed securities with government guarantees, should take a hit if the underlying loans go bad, according to former GSE regulator James Lockhart.

An ever-changing regulatory environment is challenging everyone from servicers to foreclosure attorneys and their clients creating demand for simple services that may go a long way in benefiting all parties involved in the mortgage chain.

Software solutions provider MortgageFlex Systems Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., has entered into a partnership with Interthinx of Agoura Hills, Calif., in an effort to integrate within the same platform complementary tools that combine fraud prevention with predatory lending management.

The $150 billion or so that U.S. taxpayers have spent to prop up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is "gone and won't be coming back," according to former Federal Home Loan Bank Board member Larry White.

Rep. Randy Neugebauer, the new chairman of the House Financial Services Oversight Subcommittee, believes the guarantee fees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charge its seller/servicers are underpriced and should be increased.

Since the government seized control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the fall of 2008, the two have spent more than $160 million defending the firms and their former top executives in civil lawsuits.

A class action filed in New York over $3.4 billion in two mortgage-backed securities offerings ruled in favor of the banks that issued the MBS reaffirms that the law does not bend to political correctness.“Together we stand” may be valid in life but not in a court of law. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York denied class certification in a mortgage-backed securities lawsuit that alleged misstatements about residential mortgage loan origination practices in the offering documents for securities backed by those mortgage loans.