News By Edition

The holiday season is officially upon us. How can title agents show their appreciation to partners, affiliates and clients while remaining RESPA-compliant?

RESPA News spoke with Marx Sterbcow, one of the nation’s top RESPA attorneys, on the dos and don’ts of RESPA-compliant gift-giving.

Read on for a refresher on what holiday gifts are considered a “Thing of value” under RESPA Section 8, and what items generally are safe to spread the holiday cheer.

Despite the lowest average credit scores since the housing market crash, the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) Mutual Mortgage Insurance (MMI) Fund is performing well above its congressionally required 2 percent threshold.

The MMI Fund’s capital ratio grew by more than $8 billion over last year and now stands at 2.76 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) annual report to Congress. That’s the highest level since 2008.

Read on for more highlights from the report.  

It’s been nearly one year since then-Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Richard Cordray resigned and appointed whom he believed would be his successor.

Cordray appointed Leandra English as deputy director, while President Donald Trump instead named Mick Mulvaney as acting director.

Read on to learn how the CFPB acting director battle played a role in Matthew G. Whitaker being named the new acting Attorney General under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.

Ten years after the housing crisis, mortgage firms are seeing better profits, increased customer satisfaction and lower delinquencies.

However, this favorable economic environment will not last forever, so now is the right time to implement uniform servicing data standards before the next crisis hits.

That’s according to a new paper from the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. Read on for details on the proposed benefits of uniform standards, including lower servicing costs.

A Texas man sued his servicer because he submitted his complete loss mitigation application more than 40 days before a foreclosure sale.

His servicer claimed RESPA obligations did not arise because the scheduled date at the time the loss mitigation application was received should control over the actual date of the foreclosure sale.

Read on to discover why a federal judge agreed with the defendant.

John Smaby recently was installed as 2019 president of the National Association of Realtors (NAR) during the 2018 Realtors Conference & Expo.

Smaby was NAR’s 2018 president-elect and 2017 first vice president. He has been in the industry for nearly 40 years and is a broker at Edina Realty in Minnesota, where he specializes in residential real estate.

Read on for more details about Smaby and find out who else is joining NAR’s top leadership positions.

Nearly two dozen housing and financial industry associations have come together to urge the Senate to confirm Kathleen Kraninger as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

The National Association of Realtors (NAR), RESPRO, Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) and the American Escrow Association were among the groups who sent a letter Nov. 13 to Senate leadership and the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.

Read on for details from the coalition letter.

The American Bankers Association (ABA) and a bank advocacy group have asked regulators to issue a formal rulemaking about the use of supervisory guidance. 

Last September, federal regulators issued a joint statement explicitly stating that regulatory guidance does not have the force of law, and that bank examiners should not take enforcement actions based on supervisory guidance. 

But the ABA says that isn’t enough. Read on for details on their petition to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

As conversations around Blockchain and bitcoin seep further into the real estate industry, Realtors must ensure they understand all the consequences of this evolution.

Bill Lublin, technology author and CEO of Century 21 Advantage Gold, spoke on that topic recently at the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) annual conference held in Boston.

Read on for more details from the session, “Blockchain, Bitcoin and Robots in Real Estate.”

The delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties rose to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.47 percent of all loans outstanding at the end of the third quarter of 2018, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) National Delinquency Survey.

There were significant delinquency increases in states adversely impacted by Hurricane Florence and Tropical Storm Gordon, including North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama.

Read on to learn more results from the survey.

A Michigan magistrate judge previously recommended that a borrower’s RESPA allegations involving a notice-of-assignment claim be allowed to move forward against a servicer.

However, U.S. District Judge David M. Lawson recently ruled that Magistrate Judge Mona K. Majzoub improperly denied a motion to dismiss the claim against Rushmore Loan Management.

Read on for highlights of the judge’s ruling, which upheld other aspects of the magistrate’s prior recommendations on the RESPA claims.

Nationwide Biweekly Administration has filed its first brief in its appeal of a civil penalty and injunction levied against it in a case brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Among the company’s many complaints is that the bureau’s structure is unconstitutional.

Read on for more details from the brief, which argues against a $7.93 million fine against the Ohio company and an injunction from certain practices in how it uses competitive advertising.

Real estate fraud is on the rise, so industry professionals need to take steps to avoid falling victim to scams in the marketplace.

That was the message at the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) annual conference recently held in Boston.

Read on to hear how Realtors can stay safe from data breaches that make consumers susceptible to fraud schemes, and how NAR plans to prevent real estate fraud.

An executor of a borrower’s estate sued the deceased’s servicer after the home went into foreclosure, alleging RESPA violations for not compliantly responding to qualified written requests (QWRs).

The servicer argued the plaintiff was not an agent of the borrower and thus had no legal standing to bring the claims.

Read on to see why a New Jersey district court denied the servicer’s motion to dismiss the RESPA claims. 

Thanks to a growing member base, credit unions are on point to steal a substantial mortgage share from big banks and independent lenders, according to the latest Stratmor Insights report.

According to Stratmor data, credit union membership growth has averaged more than 4 percent annually since 2016, five times the rate of the U.S. population growth, and loan balances have increased by more than 10 percent each year since 2014.

Read on for details from the October report.

Richard Cordray’s departure from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to become governor of Ohio came to an end Nov. 6 when Republican Mike DeWine defeated Cordray to earn the governorship.

Cordray’s resignation from the bureau sparked a battle for leadership control between Deputy Director Leandra English and presidential appointee Mick Mulvaney which lasted nearly six months.

Read on for more details from Cordray’s defeat in the governor’s election from a blog written by RESPRO’s former longtime president and executive director.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has charged a Paramus, N.J., property owner with housing discrimination for allegedly refusing to rent an apartment to an African-American woman and her young son.

The owner used racial slurs in text messages he sent to the woman informing her that she did not get the apartment, according to the charge.

Read on for details from the charge.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) received more complaints from consumers in California than any other state over the last three years.

And mortgages were the third most-complained about financial product or service in California, according to the CFPB’s latest Complaint Snapshot: 50-state report.

Read on for more details from the snapshot, which illustrates the challenges reported by people in all 50 states and Washington D.C. since Jan. 1, 2015.

TRID, Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (BSA/AML) and mortgage servicing were among the major credit union compliance issues for the month of October, according to the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions (NAFCU).

Each month, the NAFCU’s compliance team answers hundreds of compliance-related questions from NAFCU members, the association stated.

Read on to get detailed answers from the NAFCU to the most pressing compliance-related questions of the month.

A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judicial panel is the latest to weigh in on the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) definition of prohibited “autodialer” equipment.

The appellate court determined that an autodialer, under statutory language, includes any “device that stores telephone numbers to be called.” That definition could render a cell phone, for example, an autodialer subject to regulations under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

Read on to see details from the Ninth Circuit’s opinion and industry reaction to its potential impact on lenders and servicers.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) needs a better system in place to refer cases of potential noncompliance, according to a new study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Two of three of HUD’s program offices do not provide staff with specific guidance on when referrals are necessary.

Read on to learn other details from the report, which addressed properties that do not pass physical inspections and other issues.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has updated the Home Mortgage Disclosure Small Entity Compliance Guide.

The changes in the guide reflect amendments made by Section 104(a) of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act and the 2018 interpretive and procedural rule.

Read on for details on the updates, which include general information about Section 104(a) of the 2018 Act and loan-volume thresholds for the partial exemptions.

A woman who sued her servicer for RESPA violations relating to a loan modification was ruled to have proven her allegation as well as actual damages after a two-day bench trial.

A magistrate judge in Florida district court awarded the plaintiff $8.55 for postage costs incurred, plus substantially more for damages stemming from emotional distress.

Read on for details from the case, including how the plaintiff was able to effectively claim emotional distress.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has issued a response to a lawsuit filed by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), claiming the federal regulator’s nonbank charter program is unconstitutional.

CSBS seeks to prevent the OCC from granting national bank charters to entities operating as nonbanks, including fintech companies.

Read on for details of the lawsuit filed recently in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Nearly 10 percent of Realtors in a new survey reported an increase in property values located near marijuana dispensaries.

In addition, a majority of Realtors who had sold a grow house had no difficulty making the sale, had no issues surrounding the home’s title when selling, and disclosed that the property was used as a grow house at sale, according to the survey from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

Read on for more results and insights from a presentation made at the NAR annual conference in Boston.

As the National Association of Realtors opened its annual conference in Boston, Chief Economist Lawrence Yun told attendees that the association expected flat overall home sales and a slowing increase in home prices in 2019.

Yun said home sales to date are only 1.5 percent lower than 2017, which was the best year for home sales in a decade. He called it “a mild twinge in the data.”

Read on for more from Yun’s presentation.

A Lake Forest, Ill.-based mortgage company has agreed to pay $1.2 million to eligible consumers seeking mortgage loans who were defrauded by one of the company’s branch managers.

The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) recently entered into an assurance of voluntary compliance with Diamond Residential Mortgage Corp. related to alleged mortgage fraud at Diamond’s branch in Springfield, Ill.

Read on for details from the settlement agreement.

After years of increases, inferred compliance costs for the community banking industry declined last year to an estimated $4.7 billion. Despite the decline, the cost of regulations is a key factor in considering whether to accept acquisition offers.

That’s according to a national survey of community bankers.

Read on for more details from the annual survey findings from the Fed and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS).

The explosion of technology has brought companies who are providing lead generation and follow up services to real estate and mortgage companies. But these new services bring with them the potential for RESPA and state licensing violations.

In a recent session from the RESPRO Fall Seminar, Mayer Brown partners Phil Schulman and Holly Spencer Bunting discussed some of the liabilities and cautionary tales for companies.

Read on for lessons the pair shared concerning lead generation, website co-advertising and ways to spot potential licensing issues.

A common question around Halloween usually involves whether real estate listing brokers must disclose the history of stigmatized properties – whether that history includes ghosts, violent crimes or death. 

In many states, including Illinois, the answer is no.

Read on to learn why the general counsel for Illinois Realtors believes brokers often do not have a legal duty to disclose that someone believes a house is haunted.

Thirty-three states attorney general have joined together to urge the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) not to discontinue reviewing lenders’ compliance with the Military Lending Act (MLA) as part of its examinations. 

The attorneys generals recently wrote a joint letter to the CFPB in response to reports that the CFPB would no longer ensure compliance with the MLA as part of its regular, statutorily mandated supervisory examinations. 

Read on for details of their letter and their appeal for bipartisan work.

A New York man sued for RESPA after failing to get a response from his servicer to a qualified written request (QWR).

His servicer argued it had no duty to respond because the plaintiff’s QWR was sent to the incorrect address.

A federal judge first examined whether the servicer was required to respond, then focused on whether the allegation withstood a motion to dismiss. Read on for highlights of the judge’s opinion.

A recent enforcement action against a small-dollar lender marked the first the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) deemed an action “abusive” since Mick Mulvaney became acting director.

The bureau announced a settlement with Tennessee-based Cash Express, LLC, which offers high-cost, short-term payday and title loans, as well as check-cashing services.

Read on to find out why the CFPB found the company violated its unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices (UDAAAP) standard.