Servicing

A court hearing this week could force housing officials to clarify a longstanding gray area in the reverse mortgage business: When the borrower dies, can the lender foreclose on a surviving spouse not named in the loan?

The number of homeowners who received loan modifications rose to roughly 44,000 in January—up 2% from the previous month.

The settlement monitor gave the banks credit for $20 billion in relief – less than half the total provided, since only partial credit was given for breaks other than principal reduction.

• Paperless FHA
• Servicing Roundtable
• Lender Outsourcing
• Appraisal Regulations

Wells Fargo has come under a fresh wave of public scrutiny over allegations that the largest mortgage servicer developed an in-house, how-to manual for producing falsified documents to justify foreclosures.

A lawsuit alleges that Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown violated state law by diverting hundreds of millions of dollars from the national mortgage settlement into California's general fund.

Communities and governments would avoid having to deal with abandoned properties on a protracted basis, which pulls down local property values and creates an unnecessary backlog in the court system.

Official puts servicers on notice that they should be ready to help borrowers who can’t afford the higher monthly payments.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to address the growing problem of vacant and abandoned properties that banks and mortgage servicers have walked away from to avoid maintaining the homes.

Holders of residential mortgage-backed securities are planning to communicate with trustees and master servicers about Ocwen Financial’s practices, according to the Association of Mortgage Investors.