HUD Adds RESPA Roundtable

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has scheduled an additional RESPA roundtable for Aug. 25 so that more consumer and industry groups can participate in the discussions on reforming the mortgage application and settlement process."The department has been approached by a number of organizations who were not invited to previous roundtables and hoped to contribute to the dialogue," a HUD spokesman said. "So in the spirit of openness, HUD is planning one more roundtable here in Washington." HUD originally planned to have only three Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act roundtables. The third roundtable is set for Aug. 18. The first two showed support for tightening the good-faith estimate that lenders provide mortgage applicants, but no consensus on packaging or bundling settlement services. "The large lenders continue to push for bundling," one observer said. "But it seems like everybody else is against it for different reasons."