Compliance

A federal judge declined Tuesday to dismiss charges that Barclays Capital packed a collateralized debt obligation it sold to Eastern Financial Florida CU with junk, hastening the demise of the one-time $2.4 billion credit union, the biggest natural person credit union failure ever.

We still haven't heard from Wells Fargo & Co./Wells Fargo Funding about its exclusionary list of mortgage banking firms - lenders that it will not buy loans from in the secondary market. As you might imagine the story we published Tuesday about the topic caused quite a stir in the industry plus a ton of traffic to the National Mortgage News website.

Flagstar Bancorp Inc. increased its loss for the fourth quarter and 2011 by $4.2 million after revising a payment to settle claims regarding underwriting practices associated with loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration.

The former chief financial officer of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker on Tuesday pleaded guilty to covering up one of the largest mortgage frauds in U.S. history.

I just came across an article posted on the Community Associations Network website tallying the top 10 condo and HOA news stories of 2010. What made the top of the list? Revenue shortages.

The correspondent lending arm of Wells Fargo Bank this week began publishing a list of third-party originators that it will no longer buy loans from in the secondary market -- as a way to address what it calls "risks" in loan origination.

Congress has restored a housing counseling fund for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development after eliminating it in 2011 and at almost half of the $88 million approved during the first two years of the Obama administration. Now HUD officials worry about the amount of settlement dollars to be used for counseling.

Mortgage bondholders are threatening legal action over the $25 billion national mortgage settlement, which will give the five largest servicers credits for principal writedowns that the bondholders may take.

I started my first day at Goldman Sachs in 2004. As with all GS employees in New York, I sat through an all-day briefing on the firm, the culture, and the rules of the road. It was the most comprehensive session for new employees that I have ever experienced. That first day and all subsequent days after that while working at Goldman Sachs always exceeded my expectations.

Wells Fargo is already contacting borrowers who might be eligible for a principal reduction as required under the $25 billion robo-signing settlement with state and federal law enforcement agencies.

A company that has been helping to mitigate strategic default risk with borrower incentives for on-time payments, now is more broadly offering to help clients mitigate certain second-lien loan balance sheet concerns through rewards for accelerated pay-downs.

An appellate court decision earlier this month would provide a new avenue for borrowers to file suit against mortgage servicers that deny permanent modifications under the Home Affordable Modification Program.

On March 7, U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake sentenced Paige Kinney, aka Jamielee Miller, to 15 years in prison. Kinney had previously pleaded guilty to various charges related to a mortgage fraud scheme and to charges of bankruptcy fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, and bank fraud in two separate indictments.

Last year's repeal of the final remaining vestige of Regulation Q, the prohibition of payment of interest on business demand deposits, at long last completed a pro-competitive process which began with the Monetary Control Act of 1980. The repeal was and is a good idea.

Collateral Intelligence has signed on with FICO to provide valuation and support for the credit risk provider’s analytic solution that predicts borrowers who are at risk of strategically defaulting on their mortgages.

Despite a $25 billion national mortgage servicing settlement being filed that provides assistance for homeowners to compensate for faulty foreclosure practices that occurred following the housing market crash, scammers were still prepared to capitalize on the vulnerability of desperate homeowners.

The $25 billion national mortgage settlement essentially allows the five largest servicers to police themselves - which has made many consumer advocates surprisingly happy.

If we’re going to tackle our industry’s areas of weakness, we need to be able to define risk. We need a standardized way to classify the various types of risk.

It's undeniable that small business is the growth engine of the economy that also helps stimulate the housing market recovery. Many of the third-party service providers, such as special servicers and foreclosure counseling agencies are small size business companies.

The Lawyers' Committee and counsel Davis Polk & Wardwell filed a lawsuit this week in New York Supreme Court in Nassau County on behalf of 18 homeowners claiming that a network of for-profit loan modification companies conducted a scam on them.