Dodd-Frank

Mortgage professionals brave enough to bring mortgage fraud to light deserve the same level of protections as workers in other businesses, rather than be subjected to a patchwork of laws designed for other industries.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau went forward with a controversial move Thursday to include narratives in its complaint database.

A senior civil rights official at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is poised to tell Congress Thursday that the agency willfully disregards the process for handling internal employee complaints of discrimination and has repeatedly retaliated against staff who spoke out.

Many lenders may not have been ready for the CFPB's new mortgage disclosure rule if it took effect on Aug. 1 as planned. Now a slip-up by the agency itself has given lenders a two-month reprieve.

A technical error made by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has become a saving grace for lenders who had pushed, begged and pleaded for more time to comply with a new mortgage disclosure rule.

It turns out the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's failure to file a two-page form to Congress on time was the unspecified "administrative error" that delayed the effective date for new mortgage disclosure rules.

The legal challenge to the government's bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is not necessarily a slam-dunk victory, despite an apparent favorable legal ruling in a similar case, analysts at KBW said.

New regulations for credit rating agencies that took effect this week are expected to make mortgage and other asset-backed securities more transparent by requiring broader disclosure of certain due diligence reports.

Several House lawmakers joined the call Thursday for a formal grace period for new mortgage disclosures that would go beyond an earlier decision by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

More than a dozen housing groups are urging lawmakers to pass legislation that would grant lenders a formal grace period for implementing new disclosure forms later this summer, arguing that the industry needs greater certainty than the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has so far provided.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's "qualified mortgage" rule has put a damper on the recovery of the housing market, according to an American Bankers Association survey.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a blog post Wednesday designed to mollify industry and congressional concerns that lenders will not be ready to implement new disclosure forms by an Aug. 1 deadline.

Hundreds of lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle are pushing for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to grant a grace period for banks, credit unions and other lenders to comply with a new mortgage disclosure rule.

The proposed legislation for regulatory relief seeks to roll back critical mortgage protections put in place to prevent another housing crisis.

Critics of the regulatory relief bill proposed by Sen. Richard Shelby argue that will endanger the financial system and benefit big banks. But in fact, the changes offer sensible, nonpartisan fixes to some of the biggest problems with the Dodd-Frank Act.

It's a good idea to raise the asset threshold at which financial institutions are automatically designated as systemically important financial institutions. But Sen. Richard Shelby's proposed legislation for regulatory relief does require one crucial change.

The regulatory relief package coming before the Senate Banking Committee Thursday would force the Federal Housing Finance Agency to withdraw the contentious proposal within 30 days.

Before Dodd-Frank, proving risk management precautions were in place was enough; now, the only real defense lenders and servicers have is an audit trail showing how violations were avoided.

The CFPB's powers to initiate enforcement actions are nearly boundless.

WASHINGTON — A new mortgage disclosure regime due to take effect on Aug. 1 is unlikely to cause closing delays, according to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray.