Compliance & Regulation

The Federal Trade Commission has issued a new rule banning the collection of fees by mortgage loan modification and other foreclosure rescue service providers until homeowners receive a written offer from their lender or servicer “that they decide is acceptable”.

BankAtlantic Bancorp Inc., Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has been ordered by a jury to pay $2.41 per share to common stockholders in a class action lawsuit filed after the company's earnings were battered by problems with real estate.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is looking at warehouse lending to see if such transactions are legitimate secondary market transactions under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.

George Madison, general counsel of the Treasury Department, says the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may move forward with proposed rules without a permanent director.

If government support of the mortgage market is reduced – either gradually or immediately – and the private sector doesn't fill the void with investment capital, it could have dire consequences for housing and residential finance, according to a new analysis released by Redwood Trust.

At its Nov. 23 meeting next week, the Financial Stability Oversight Council is set to discuss the on-going foreclosure mess and whether it presents a systemic risk to the financial system, according to a Treasury Department official.

An updated CoreLogic Mortgage Fraud Trends Report finds that while overall mortgage fraud has increased by 20% since fraud hit its lowest level in 2009, refinance fraud saw an even higher increase of 30%.

All four federal bank regulatory agencies are conducting targeted exams of foreclosure practices and policies involving on-site examinations and the sampling of loan files at depositories that control a large portion of the nation's $9.9 trillion in housing receivables.

Federal banking regulators are examining two nonbank service providers at the epicenter of the foreclosure-documentation mess – Lender Processing Services Inc. and Merscorp Inc.’s Mortgage Electronic Registration System.

Texas was a latecomer to the reverse mortgage game, with the product’s presence in the state now celebrating its 10th anniversary of the first loan being originated.