Compliance

After months of waiting as their counterparts began examining banks, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's nonbank supervision team began the enormous task Thursday of overseeing the rest of the consumer financial sector.

On Dec. 22, 2011, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the sentences of Terrance "Terry" and Sonya "Cheri" Tucker, a Thousand Oaks couple who pleaded guilty to bank fraud in a real estate scheme that cheated homebuyers and investors.

Advocates for Consumer Affairs, a compliance and risk management firm that audits mortgage loans nationwide, said it plans to concentrate their efforts to make sure homeowners receive loans that are enforceable from financial institutions.

Many community banks are looking to residential mortgage lending as one of the ways to increase their profit margins in the era of Dodd-Frank, notes a compliance expert at a banking industry technology provider.

It's a distinction that doesn't portray the mortgage business in a very good light. But it's a milestone nonetheless: The national Loan Modification Scam Database has now collected more than 20,000 complaints.

Wells Fargo & Co. has agreed to pay nearly $1 million in restitution to Maryland residents who lost their homes to foreclosure after receiving so-called "Pick-a-Payment" mortgages.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has suspended James Grier, the president of Section 8 apartment complex Mantua Gardens East in Philadelphia, Pa. from conducting business with the federal government.

The Collingwood Group, a Washington-based mortgage advisory firm, has acquired GWN Consulting LLC, a specialist in FHA and GNMA risk management and quality control services.

Although profit margins are still healthy for most mortgage banking firms, net income in the new year will continue to be impacted by "high" rep and warranty expenses, according to a recent report from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

What a surprise! A study by the Federal Reserve Board of New York found that speculative investors in real estate played a large part in the quick run-up and subsequent devaluation of housing prices, and are responsible for more of the financial crisis than previously thought. Wow! Turns out lenders were the victims after all, right?

Not so long ago, I mused in a column for this publication about the dearth of qualified underwriters available at a time when the industry is in desperate need of them. It was Hemingway who first introduced me to the concept of the Lost Generation, a situation that seems to have entered our reality today.

Seven individuals in the Cleveland area have agreed to plead guilty to bank fraud charges in the 2010 failure of St. Paul Croatian Federal Credit Union and will testify against the main figure in the case, a purported international crime figure.

If anyone thought the GSE 'Buyback Wars' would subside in 2012 all they have to do is read a recent SEC filing from Bank of America, the poster child of repurchase claims. The bank notes that the "criteria by which the GSEs are ultimately willing to resolve claims have changed in ways that are unfavorable to us."

As 2012 begins, the California Department of Real Estate is still warning consumers to be wary of promises for loan modification, mortgage relief and foreclosure rescue scams as fraudsters to continue prey on vulnerable, financially stressed homeowners.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has extended the deadline for financial institutions to adopt the agency's new Currency Transaction Report and Suspicious Activity Report until the end of March 2013.

Patrick Thesing has been named the chief compliance officer for Houston-based Stewart Information Services Corp.

A Rhode Island mortgage loan processor with National City Mortgage Co. has pleaded guilty to participating in a straw-borrowing scheme that brought in more than $3.5 million in fraudulently obtained mortgages.

A former Bronx, N.Y., borough president, who currently is the New York and New Jersey regional director for the Department of Urban Housing and Development, admitted in a disposition that he violated the city's conflict of interest law that prohibits elected officials from using their position to obtain financial or personal incentives.

Mortgage fraud is so prevalent today that even individuals related to celebrities are creating scams in order to steal money from future homeowners.

Flippers doing it illegally defraud banks by buying at short sales for prices below the true value and what legitimate buyers will pay. In these schemes, realty agents obtain FRAUDULENT APPRAISALS to persuade banks to sell houses at below-market prices.