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Mortgage Compliance

FHA Proposes to Make Condo Approvals Easier

On September 27th, FHA announced their new proposals to ease their process for approving both condo projects and individual units in a non-approved project. The real estate community sees this as a step in the right direction. The intent is to make more condo units available for FFHA-insured financing, thus helping to make more affordable housing available to low to…

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Mortgage Compliance

CFPB Expresses Pleasure With Lender Performance

Speaking at MBA’s Legal and Regulatory Conference in Washington, DC, Peggy Twohig, CFPB’s Assistant Director, said that the CFPB is generally pleased with what lenders have done to comply with the new Dodd-Frank rules. Interestingly, she mentioned ability to repay and LO comp, but not TRID. I guess it’s a little too soon to tell. With some exceptions, they also…

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Mortgage Compliance

Dodd-Frank Reform (Part 2): Background on the CHOICE Act

My recent blog on the CHOICE Act talked about what’s broken in Washington, DC. Here’s a little more detail on the political wrangling that went on behind the scenes when the CHOICE Act went before the House Financial Services Committee for markup. (CHOICE) The Democrats decision to offer no alternatives or amendments to the proposals in the ACT, although unusual,…

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Mortgage Compliance

Dodd-Frank Reform (Part 1): An Exercise in Futility

In June, House Financial Services Committee Chair, Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), introduced legislation to roll back Dodd-Frank. This legislation, H.R. 5983, is known as the Financial CHOICE Act (Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers, and Entrepreneurs). Cute. Do they have people in Washington whose sole responsibility is to come up with these little ditties as acronyms for legislation? I wonder.…

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Mortgage Compliance

HUD Settlement: Another One Bites the Dust

Same old song. This time to the tune of $52.4 million paid by Regions Financial Corporation of Birmingham, AL to HUD settling an action brought under the False Claims Act by the Department of Justice (DOJ). Under this settlement, Regions acknowledged it made and certified FHA insured loans that did not meet all required underwriting criteria. As a result, FHA-insured…

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Mortgage Compliance

We’re from FHFA and we’re here to help…

Introducing the New Improved URLA Don’t look now! Hot on the heels of the system and technology modifications and updates needed to finalize the handling of the disclosures required by TRID, we see the new improved Uniform Residential Loan Application (URLA) looming on the horizon. This new application is being touted by the Agencies as a benefit to both consumers…

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