10 mortgage reforms in the Senate reg relief bill

Among the many provisions in the Senate's extensive regulatory relief bill are a number of changes that will directly affect mortgage lenders and servicers.

The Senate is racing toward a final vote on S.2155, which includes several items that address the mortgage industry's calls for regulatory relief, as well as other calls for relief from post-crisis Dodd-Frank Act restrictions in adjacent financial-services businesses, like credit scoring.

Some of the proposed changes in the legislation sponsored by Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, target rules that drew broad-based complaints from the mortgage industry. But others address narrower concerns from specific sub-sets of the business, and at least one is not a relief measure, but rather restores an expired post-crisis servicing restriction.

The regulatory relief that the Crapo bill offers is aimed primarily at loosening restrictions on lenders rather than servicers, particularly if they are smaller and are nonbanks or credit unions.

That may be in part to appease Democrats that might otherwise oppose the bill. Some progressive Democrats are challenging the proposed legislation on the grounds it could mark a return to dangerous pre-crisis financial services practices.

But former Rep. Barney Frank, one of the Dodd-Frank Act's co-authors, is rejecting such concerns on the grounds that the bill does not threaten "prohibitions about making shaky loans to people with weak credit and then packing them into a security."

From HMDA and TRID to restoring the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act, here's a look at 10 mortgage and housing provisions in the Senate's regulatory reform bill.

Banks and credit unions that originate less than 500 open-ended and 500 closed-end mortgages would be exempt from a CFPB rule that requires lenders to provide additional data under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.

The provision, which does not apply to nonbanks, would not exempt institutions from HMDA reporting altogether, but is limited to new requirements initially mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010.

Critics argue this provision will make it easier for lenders to discriminate. The bill also calls for a study of the recent HMDA expansion's impact on all lenders.