Compliance

The former chairman and commissioner of the Bergen County Improvement Authority who was also a principal in the mortgage brokerage firm Residential Mortgage Corp. recently pleaded guilty for his involvement in a mortgage fraud scheme that falsely claimed company employment for numerous mortgage borrowers.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development wants All American Home Mortgage Corp. to indemnify the FHA against future losses on five loans that violated agency guidelines.

The Department of Labor Wednesday ordered Bank of America to rehire and pay $930,000 to a former mortgage employee improperly fired in a whistleblower case tied to Countrywide Financial Corp., the troubled lender bought by the bank in 2008.

Trends in the title insurance market show that while business is still strained, the tension is lessening and companies with strategic vision can begin to capitalize on the opportunities at hand, according to a new report from Demotech.

A federal judge this week ruled that the court-appointed trustee overseeing the liquidation of Thornburg Mortgage, Santa Fe, can move forward with a lawsuit against Barclays Capital alleging the investment banker made improper margin calls that helped drive the jumbo lender/servicer into bankruptcy.

Risk mitigation providers Equifax and Interthinx are enhancing their existing relationship by providing financial institutions real-time information regarding an individual's current employment and income status to pay for their loan.

Four individuals have been indicted for engaging in a scheme to defraud Wilmington Trust Federal Savings Bank and Malvern Federal Savings Bank of at least $35.5 million.

On Aug. 29, two men suspected of scamming homeowners struggling to avoid foreclosure will be arraigned in San Bernardino Superior Court on a 45-count criminal complaint.

Former Mortgage Bankers Association chief executive John Courson has joined Treliant Risk Advisors as a senior advisor, a press release from the company said.

As settlement talks continue between the states and the megabanks over the robosigning scandal, some of the nation's largest servicers fear they may have a new item to add to their worry list: civil liability tied to the monthly processing of Federal Housing Administration loans.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is pushing back against claims that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were sophisticated investors that should have done a better job of vetting their purchases of mortgage-backed securities.

Many of the country's largest banks received $6 billion in kickbacks from mortgage insurers over the course of a decade, according to a previously undisclosed investigation by the Inspector General of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

When the Federal Housing Finance Agency late Friday unveiled its $200 billion lawsuit against investment banking firms that sold faulty MBS to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it also targeted executives who signed the original shelf registration documents on the securities in question.

The nominee to be the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said he prefers to use "supervisory tools" as opposed to litigation to enforce consumer protection laws.

Effective immediately, FHA-approved supervised lenders that are regulated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Office of Thrift Supervision, or National Credit Union Administration whose consolidated assets do not meet the threshold required by those agencies for submitting audited financial statements (delineated at 12 C.F.R. § 363.1(a), 12 C.F.R. § 562.4(b)(2) and 12 C.F.R. § 715.4(c)) are not required to submit audited financial statements to FHA, nor an audited computation of net worth.

In an attempt to award the handling of certain business practices for Las Vegas condominium homeowners' associations to fraudulent companies, Steven Wark has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.

Of the many plays one can visualize in any football game, the "prevent defense" is one that likely causes some of the most "what the" moments. Essentially, the standard defensive line is abandoned trading rushing for coverage with seven or more players in a defensive back role, the goal of which is to prevent the opposing offense from completing a long pass by ensuring that no receiver can get behind the defense.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency late Friday filed a massive multi-billion civil suit against 17 firms that played a role in selling faulty subprime MBS to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – including the government owned Ally Financial and Fannie's biggest customer at one time, Countrywide Financial Corp.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is on the verge of filing a barrage of civil claims against investment banking firms that packaged nonprime loans into mortgage-backed securities while misrepresenting the quality of the underlying collateral, according to a new published report.

The Federal Reserve Thursday afternoon slapped Goldman Sachs with an enforcement action, saying its Litton Loan Servicing division engaged in a "pattern of misconduct" tied to robo-signings.