Compliance & Regulation

Borrowers giving up their homes through short sales face pressure to pay fees under the table; potential ripple effects of a Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac name change.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown is suing mortgage titans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, for effectively killing programs that allow the state's localities to issue bonds to finance energy-efficient upgrades made by homeowners.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said his company was one of "many" broker/dealers that received a subpoena from the Federal Housing Finance Agency which recently launched an inquiry into private label securities purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will begin taking final bids on the $23 billion AmTrust Bank residential servicing portfolio by the end of July with a winner picked shortly thereafter, investment banking sources said Wednesday.

Federal banking regulators are pledging to go easy on lenders in the Gulf Coast States that work with and assist their customers—including mortgagors—that have been adversely impacted by the British Petroleum oil spill disaster.

Federal Reserve officials expect residential sales will "remain weak" now that the homebuyer tax credit has expired, according to just released minutes of the June 22-23 Federal Open Market Committee meeting.

One area of consensus in Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac reform that is emerging in at least one of the two main political camps eyeing the issue could be an entity or entities that provide an explicit guarantee and insurance wrap on mortgage-backed securities.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio denied certifying a Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act class action lawsuit on March 11, 2010. The Carter v. Welles-Bowen Realty, Inc., case No. 3:05 CV 7427, consolidated No. 3:09 CV 400, 2010 WL 908464 (Northern District of Ohio) is a case where the plaintiffs asserted that Welles-Bowen Realty, Inc was engaged in operating illegal affiliated business arrangements (aka sham AfBAs) which is a violation of RESPA Section 8(a) and 8(b) (12. U.S.C. 2607 (a) and (b))

The Securities and Exchange Commission recently charged a New York-based investment adviser and three of his affiliated firms with fraudulently managing investment products tied to the mortgage markets as they came under pressure in 2007.

A group of investors is suing Fortuno, Inc., a Lodi, Calif.-based buyer of foreclosed homes and its outside marketing executives, alleging they illegally "enticed" the group to invest in the purchase and re-sale of REOs in Ohio and Michigan with the promise of high returns upon flipping the properties.