The Congressional discussion of revisions to the “Improving Language in Mortgage Servicing Act” scheduled for Wednesday has revived mortgage industry concerns about how companies can prove compliance when providing translation services.
Expansion of an existing
A previous debate over the extent of lenders’ responsibility for borrowers with limited English proficiency led to
“As indicated by our focused work with regulators over the past several years, the
MBA and its members are eager to serve all borrower cohorts,” Bill Killmer, the MBA’s senior vice president of legislative and political affairs, said in the letter. However, he recommended that “the legal framework contemplated by this proposal should avoid imposing compliance burdens that would significantly increase lender liability.”
While the bill is primarily targeted at language access in servicing, it pertains to creditors as well.
In addition to expanded use of the clearinghouse, other steps the MBA’s letter calls with the aim of ensuring clarity in compliance are:
• A uniform national set of guidelines that would preempt
•access to public databases of translation services, and
•limits on the LEP languages for which resources must be made available to those most commonly spoken by consumers.
Roughly 8% of U.S. consumers have limited English proficiency and the majority of them speak Spanish, so they represent a significant portion of the market mortgage companies serve.
Other common LEP languages include Chinese, Vietnamese and Tagalog, a dialect of the Filipino language, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
