Compliance & Regulation

Senate Republicans plan to block the confirmation of Carol Galante to head the Federal Housing Administration until the Obama administration takes more forceful action to strengthen the government mortgage insurer - and issues a blueprint for dealing with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Senate Banking Committee has scheduled a vote Tuesday on Thomas Hoenig to become vice chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Mortgage document preparation technology vendor DocuTech acquired competing doc prep technology Docs3D in a deal announced Tuesday.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is urging a U.S. district court to block the city of Chicago from enforcing an ordinance that could increase the cost of maintaining foreclosed properties controlled by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

House Republican leaders have included a hike in GSE guarantee fees in their bill to extend a payroll tax holiday that is similar to a Senate version, which means seller/servicers could be facing higher g-fees next year.

Sometimes, mortgage origination fraud is easy to detect and other times it is frustratingly difficult. When a borrower deliberately lies about income, employment or identity, the fraud is clearly visible. But what about the case of an owner-occupied loan where the borrower never moves in, but still makes the payments as agreed?

Federal regulators took another step last week toward lessening banks' reliance on credit ratings by proposing three methods for assessing risk on firms' trading books.

The drop over 3Q11 of commercial and multifamily loans is a credit positive for CMBS, according to Standard & Poor's in a note released Friday.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had so far limited its complaint process to just credit cards. But CFPB began taking complaints related to home mortgages as of Dec. 1.

Recent Congressional efforts to begin serious discussion of a gradual transition to greater private capital participation in housing finance and greater distribution of risk to participants other than the government are important. FHFA has already begun taking actions in support of these objectives.