Law and regulation

USMI, the new trade group being formed to replace the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America, will include all of the active carriers in the industry – except AIG's United Guaranty.

The Community Home Lenders Association is pointing to President Obama's recently released budget as proof that the Federal Housing Administration has leeway to lower premiums.

Carl Cole was sentenced for his role in a $30 million scam in the Bakersfield, Calif. market.

Scott Tomlinson at Flint Community Bank used a meeting with the agency's deputy director to speak his mind on the shortcomings of mortgage regulation.

Private-label mortgage securities issuers should act now to make their industry more standardized and transparent, the senior adviser to the U.S. Treasury on housing policy said.

A jump in lender-paid policies would come at an inopportune time for the industry, which faces new regulatory requirements for such insurance, underscoring the need to educate borrowers why it is necessary.

The increased scrutiny, mortgage bankers complain, would end recent attempts to provide home loans to borrowers with weaker credit, something the FHA has been trying to spur for years.

After halting an Ocwen deal to purchase mortgage-servicing rights from Wells Fargo, New York's Department of Financial Services is turning its attention to another nonbank servicer, Nationstar.

The House passed legislation trimming premiums for government-sponsored flood insurance that proponents say have dampened real estate markets in coastal areas.

While the budget was once again focused on other issues than financial services, it provided an update on the White House's priorities as well as a prediction that the FHA's fortunes will soon improve.

How federal regulators fabricated a media narrative with verbal sleights of hand.

PNC also disclosed more details about three subpoenas it received from the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan related to National City Bank, the Cleveland-based subprime home lender PNC purchased in 2008.

Rules enacted last year appear to be steadily forcing banks to exit the mortgage servicing business, transferring such rights to nonbanks. The situation is stoking fears on Capitol Hill and elsewhere that regulators went too far.

The GSEs reported big profits for 2013 but even the companies' executives question the sustainability of those earnings.

A technical reading of the rule supports excluding charges by a broker's title affiliate from the 3% fee cap. But without a specific interpretation from the CFPB, it would be unwise to risk a loan's QM status.

The demolitions in this Michigan city of about 100,000 people are part of the stepped up efforts by officials in several Midwestern states to rid their blighted neighborhoods of decayed housing that's depressing prices.

Bruce Berkowitz, the money manager battling the U.S. government over the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is calling on the boards of the mortgage-finance giants to build capital instead of turning over their profits to Treasury now that they've returned to profitability.

Two of the three major nonbank servicers are sticking by plans to acquire portfolios from banks this year, in spite of regulatory scrutiny and concern they are growing too fast.

Prospect Mortgage's victory in a court case brought by a loan officer who sued for minimum wage and overtime has been the talk of the industry. Following are comments posted by readers on NationalMortgageNews.com showing the wide range of interpretations of the case.Many loan officers view themselves as independent contractors. Others think W-2 tax classifications by employers are at odds with that view.

Government mortgage programs for this country's more than six million Native people are accelerating home loan credit access to this underserved group of people. But seemingly intractable housing problems endure.