Here's a bit of 'on-the-ground' intelligence from one title company vendor attending the annual Mortgage Bankers Association show in San Diego (edited, in part by me for clarity and grammar): "I'm in the convention hall, talking to the folks in the booths (as I would think the average mortgage lender would) about readiness for the RESPA rule and am, candidly, nervous. In one discussion with a vendor about a nuts and bolts question, she told me 'We'll have to talk to our compliance lawyer about that -- we hadn't thought of it the way you are portraying the question.' In another booth, when I asked to speak to the person who would know why the software treated a question the way it did I was told 'We left him back at the office.'
Oh, and at the session billed as 'Legislative and Regulatory Outlook', the person with the RESPA question for HUD was told by the HUD representative that she 'wasn't in that department.' Which is true, she is with FHA." Any way, there you have it. And our own Lew Sichelman reports that MBA hired the Pinkertons to patrol the convention area, helping smoke out potential gate crashers. You'd think that executives from a newly formed (and competing) trade group were attending the show, hoping to drum up business. Wait a second...
