Compliance & Regulation

We still haven't heard from Wells Fargo & Co./Wells Fargo Funding about its exclusionary list of mortgage banking firms - lenders that it will not buy loans from in the secondary market. As you might imagine the story we published Tuesday about the topic caused quite a stir in the industry plus a ton of traffic to the National Mortgage News website.

Flagstar Bancorp Inc. increased its loss for the fourth quarter and 2011 by $4.2 million after revising a payment to settle claims regarding underwriting practices associated with loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration.

The former chief financial officer of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker on Tuesday pleaded guilty to covering up one of the largest mortgage frauds in U.S. history.

Federal Reserve limited liability companies created to respond to strains in financial markets have reduced by hundreds of billions of dollars the amount of agency securities the Fed acquired through open market operations.

I just came across an article posted on the Community Associations Network website tallying the top 10 condo and HOA news stories of 2010. What made the top of the list? Revenue shortages.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. warned officers and directors facing potential lawsuits from the agency not to remove internal documents from a failing bank's premises.

The correspondent lending arm of Wells Fargo Bank this week began publishing a list of third-party originators that it will no longer buy loans from in the secondary market -- as a way to address what it calls "risks" in loan origination.

Congress has restored a housing counseling fund for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development after eliminating it in 2011 and at almost half of the $88 million approved during the first two years of the Obama administration. Now HUD officials worry about the amount of settlement dollars to be used for counseling.

Mortgage bondholders are threatening legal action over the $25 billion national mortgage settlement, which will give the five largest servicers credits for principal writedowns that the bondholders may take.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency had sharp words early this week for state and local governments that have passed laws meant to help homeowners facing risk of foreclosure.