Compliance & Regulation

The California Department of Business Oversight is accepting applications until Feb. 20 from firms or individuals with experience with the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act and California Homeowner Bill of Rights.

Two Republican legislators have suggested that affordable housing funding should be put on hold until Congress finally decides what to do about Fannie and Freddie. But why give Congress another six years to fiddle around with housing finance while the poor and homeless face a declining level of government housing assistance?

The Internal Revenue Service recently closed two audits of bonds issued in Colorado with no change to the bonds' tax-exempt statuses.

In yet another revision of its mortgage rules, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed making it easier for small and rural lenders to make "qualified mortgages." Industry representatives said the changes are poised to make a big difference.

The Federal Housing Administration will make foreclosure protections available to a larger number of surviving spouses of deceased reverse mortgage borrowers.

The Treasury Department has exceeded its authority by keeping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in conservatorship so long and taking all their profits, two legislative experts said Thursday.

Banks have made progress cutting their exposure to risky home equity lines of credit, ahead of a key 10-year threshold when billions of dollars of them will reset to higher monthly payments. But there are some prominent exceptions, especially among regional banks.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday proposed a series of regulatory relief measures for small institutions, especially those in rural areas, to help them provide credit while they try to follow the agency's tough mortgage rules.

New Jersey’s largest home-grown savings bank continued to shed loans and deposits in the fourth quarter as it continues to wait to be acquired by a commercial bank from upstate New York.

Regulatory attention is supposed to be laser-focused on servicers right now, especially when it comes to how consistent they are in applying workouts. So regulators should be looking closely at whether loans have forbearance.