Compliance & Regulation

Wells Fargo & Co. has completed a review of its Realtor mortgage joint ventures and plans to slash the number of these operations down to roughly 14 by early 2013.

Merscorp Holdings will provide the state of Delaware’s Department of Justice Consumer Protection Unit a semi-annual report detailing results of its internal audits.

San Bernardino County and the cities of Ontario and Fontana have formed a Joint Powers Authority to consider a plan from private company Mortgage Resolution Partners to use the state's authority to seize current but underwater home loans.

The $175 million fair-lending settlement that federal authorities announced late this week with mortgage giant Wells Fargo offered both sides the chance to claim some measure of victory and move past a three-year-long investigation.

Twelve Democratic senators have called for a U.S. investigation into any role banks and regulators may have played in the scandal over the London Interbank Offered Rate.

As California goes, so goes the nation? Let’s hope not, at least as to legislation that will make California the first state in the nation to codify provisions of the national mortgage settlement.

A settlement will provide $125 million in compensation to nearly 34,000 borrowers harmed by Wells Fargo’s lending practices and another $50 million will be allotted to eight cities to fund community improvements in neighborhoods hard-hit by foreclosures.

A federal judge sentenced Scott Eric Perry to 18 months in prison on false statement charges related to an almost $750,000 mortgage fraud scheme in the Birmingham area.

According to CoreLogic’s Negative Equity Report, nearly 17 million borrowers who were underwater by the end of the first quarter had loan-to-value ratios of 80% to 125%, which purely from an LTV perspective makes them eligible for the original Home Affordable Refinance Program.

A private company has proposed inducing local governments in the "test" state of California to exercise their power of eminent domain to seize, not houses or property, but the underlying liens.