excerpted from Housing Wire 10/6/14
 

Regulators recently offered a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of what areas they are targeting for enforcement, saying that potential fair lending violations and how mortgages are priced and serviced remain top priorities for the future.

Speaking at a mortgage conference in early October, top enforcement officials from the Department of Justice, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said they have ramped up investigations of the mortgage space.

 

Several attendees said they expected that the agencies will focus on fair lending scrutiny of their portfolios, but were still struck by certain regulators' sometimes aggressive tone.

 

"We do not regulate you. We do not supervise you. We do sue you," said Steven Rosenbaum, chief of housing and civil enforcement in the DOJ's Civil Rights Division.

 

Following is an account of what each agency is targeting - and the impact that could have on lenders.  (Read complete article.)

 

 

In early October the CFPB held the third in its series of webinars to answer frequently asked questions regarding the RESPA-TILA Integrated Disclosures rule. The webinar focused on completing the Loan Estimate form that will replace the Good Faith Estimate and initial Truth in Lending statement in August of next year.

While the webinar focused on the Loan Estimate, some questions and answers related to the completion of the Closing Disclosure. Some of the applicable questions included:

• Question: Can the designation "N/A" be used where no value is to be disclosed on the Loan Estimate? (Comment 37-1.) Answer: No. If there is a typical service that will not be employed in the transaction, that service is either not shown on the form or the cost is left blank if it is a hard-coded line (such as points).
• Question: Is a mortgage broker required to generate and disclose a unique loan ID number when it is not the creditor? Answer: No. The unique loan ID number is left blank unless the creditor is known and has issued the loan a unique ID. This answer is helpful because page five of the Closing Disclosure includes a line for the settlement agent's ID number. In many/most states, the settlement agent does not have a state-issued ID number. In such cases, this answer confirms that you would leave that line blank.
• Question: Recording fees and other taxes appear to encompass all government taxes which are not transfer taxes. Does this include taxes on separate services, such as title insurance? (1026.37(g)(1)) Answer: No. Only fees paid for the recording of documents (including service fees related to recording such as technology fees) are shown on the line for "Recording Fees and Other Taxes" in section E of the Closing Disclosure. Taxes paid for other third-party settlement services such as taxes on title insurance or sales taxes are not included in this section and should be included as needed as part of the disclosure of the charges for those services.

ALTA will continue to review this and other webinars and include questions and answers on our TILA-RESPA compliance blog which can be found at http://blog.alta.org/mortgage-disclosures/. If you have any questions please contact ALTA's legislative and regulatory counsel, Steve Gottheim, at [email protected] or 202-261-2943. 

 

According to the latest data released Thursday by Freddie Mac, the 30-year fixed-rate average fell for the third week in a row, dropping to 4.12 percent with an average 0.5 point. It was down from 4.19 percent a week ago and 4.23 percent a year ago.

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