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Freddie Mac Requires Lender-Place Insurance Compliance Certification, Updates Foreclosure And Transfer Tax Policies
On March 17, Freddie Mac issued Bulletin 2014-3, which requires servicers to provide a certification that they are or will be in compliance with new lender-placed insurance requirements announced in Bulletin 2013-27. With regard to alternatives to foreclosure, Bulletin 2014-3 (i) makes optional requirements announced in Bulletin 2013-27 related to the processing of modifications for mortgages with pre-modification mark-to-market loan-to-value ratios less than 80%; (ii) requires servicers to provide notices on behalf of Freddie Mac in certain circumstances when Freddie Mac participated in evaluating a borrower for a workout or relief option and declined to approve the workout or relief request; (iii) reorganizes property valuation requirements for modifications; and (iv) provides additional guidance related to paystub requirements for income documentation submitted with a Borrower Response Package. Finally, Freddie Mac also (i) updated requirements for the reimbursement of transfer taxes; (ii) permitted servicers to instruct foreclosure counsel to conduct a foreclosure in Freddie Mac’s name, without obtaining prior written approval, if doing so would avoid any obligation to pay a transfer tax; and (iii) provided guidance on numerous additional servicing issues.
Fannie Mae Launches Online Selling Guide
This week, Fannie Mae began providing access to an online version of its single-family Selling Guide through its corporate website. Fannie Mae believes this online version will be easier to navigate and will allow for enhanced search capabilities. The new tool allows users to view on one screen all five Selling Guide part titles and introductions, and allows users to access subparts, chapters, and individual topics. Other new features include the ability to email and print pages.
Maine Seeks To Halt Unlicensed Consumer Lending
On March 16, Maine enacted legislation that makes it a violation of the Maine Unfair Trade Practices Act for a lender not organized and supervised under the laws of any state or the United States to solicit or make, either directly or through an agent, a loan to a Maine consumer unless licensed under state law. The law also establishes as an unfair or deceptive act or practice for entities other than supervised financial institutions to process a check, draft, other form of negotiable instrument or an electronic fund transfer from a consumer's financial account in connection with a loan solicited from or made by an unlicensed lender who is not exempt from the licensure requirement. The statute similarly establishes as an unfair or deceptive act or practice for any person or lender to provide substantial assistance to a lender or processor when the person or lender or the person's or lender's authorized agent either knows or consciously avoids knowing that the lender or processor is unlicensed and not otherwise exempt from licensure or is engaging in an unfair or deceptive act or practice. The Maine UTPA provides a private right of action and allows the state attorney general to seek injunctive relief and civil penalties for violations of an injunction.
Data Breach Class Settlement Approved After Eleventh Circuit Held Identity Theft Following Breach Presents Cognizable Injury
Recently, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida approved a class settlement in a case in which the plaintiffs claimed financial harm from a health care companys failure to protect their personal information. Resnick v. AvMed Inc., No. 10-24513 (S.D. Fla. Feb. 28, 2014). The settlement follows a September 2012 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in which the court reversed the district court's dismissal of the case and held that because the complaint alleged financial injury, and because monetary loss is cognizable under Florida law, the plaintiffs alleged a cognizable injury. The court explained that the plaintiffs demonstrated a sufficient nexus between the data breach and the identity theft beyond allegations of time and sequence because the plaintiffs plead that they were careful in protecting their identities and had never been victims of identity theft. The settlement requires the company to pay $3 million, with each class member receiving up to $10 for each year they paid an insurance premium, up to a maximum of $30. The company also agreed to implement new data security measures.
CFPB Releases Annual Report on Debt Collection
On March 20, the CFPB released its third annual report summarizing its activities in 2013 to implement and enforce the FDCPA. The report describes the CFPB’s and the FTC’s shared FDCPA enforcement authority, incorporates the FTC’s annual FDCPA update, and reiterates the intention of both the FTC and the CFPB to exercise their authority to take action—both independently and in concert—against those in violation of the FDCPA.
The report highlights the debt collection-related complaints the Bureau has received—over 30,000 since the CFPB began accepting and compiling consumer complaints in July 2013, making the third-party debt collection market the largest source of consumer complaints submitted to the CFPB. The report states that the majority of the complaints the CFPB has received involve attempts to collect debts not owed and allegedly illegal communication tactics. The report also identifies several changes within the debt collection industry over the past year that will remain points of emphasis for the CFPB, including the expansion of the debt buying market, the growth of medical debt and student loan debt in collection, and the use of expanded technologies to communicate with debtors.
CFPB Begins Testing Model Prepaid Disclosures
On March 18, the CFPB announced that it has begun testing two potential model prepaid card disclosures. After holding field tests last month in Baltimore and this week in Los Angeles, the CFPB plans a final field test next month at a location to be determined. The model forms would provide a standard format for disclosing certain fees, including, among others, monthly, reload, per purchase, ATM withdrawal, and inactivity fees. The two models primarily differ in design—the fees included on the two test models are identical, but for a “decline” fee, which appears only on one of the models.
The field testing follows the CFPB’s May 2012 advance notice of proposed rulemaking soliciting comments to evaluate prepaid cards. The CFPB received hundreds of comments in response to that initial inquiry, and since that time, advocacy groups and members of Congress have continued to pressure the CFPB to take action on prepaid cards. For example, in the last several months, Senate Democrats introduced two prepaid card bills that would establish certain disclosure requirements, and the PEW Charitable Trusts released a paper outlining its latest position and model disclosures.
Finally, in addition to the field testing, the CFPB is seeking comments on the model disclosures through its blog, Twitter, Facebook, or email “from anyone who is interested in making prepaid card disclosures better.” Following completion of the testing, the CFPB expects to propose a rule “later this spring.” That timeline matches one laid out in the CFPB’s most recent rulemaking agenda, in which the Bureau anticipated a proposed rule in May 2014.
DOJ OIG Report Critical Of Mortgage Fraud Enforcement Programs
On March 13, the DOJ Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report on its audit of the DOJ’s efforts between 2009 and 2011 to pursue alleged mortgage fraud. Of particular note, the report reveals for the first time publicly that as part of a joint effort between HUD and the DOJ related to so-called “high default lenders,” the HUD OIG provided 84 U.S. Attorney Offices (USAOs) with lender default data for potential civil investigations and approximately 40 civil investigations were opened as a result. Much of the report focuses on the DOJ’s limited ability to track its mortgage fraud enforcement efforts. The audit revealed that, as a result of those limitations, the DOJ has repeatedly used inaccurate statistics in public statements about its mortgage enforcement results. Among a series of recommendations, the DOJ OIG suggests that DOJ (i) direct all USAOs to periodically assess any monetary thresholds applied to mortgage fraud cases to ensure they are reasonably based upon the threat within their respective jurisdictions and adequately allow for non-monetary harms that result from mortgage fraud schemes, as well as ensure that law enforcement agencies in their respective districts have a clear understanding of any limiting factors being applied to such cases; (ii) develop a method to capture additional data that will allow DOJ to better understand the results of its efforts in investigating and prosecuting mortgage fraud and to identify the position of mortgage fraud defendants within an organization; and (iii) develop a method to readily identify mortgage fraud criminal and civil enforcement efforts for reporting purposes.
HUD Proposes To Eliminate Post-Payment Interest On FHA Loans
On March 13, HUD proposed a rule to prohibit mortgagees from charging post-payment interest under FHA’s single family mortgage insurance program. The proposal is responsive to the CFPB’s ATR/QM rule, under which post-payment interest charged in connection with FHA loans closed on or after January 21, 2015 will be considered a prepayment penalty. HUD’s proposal states that while some single-family FHA mortgages would meet the requirements under the ATR/QM rule permitting limited prepayment penalties during the first 36 months of the mortgage, others would not. The proposal seeks to achieve consistency among FHA single-family mortgage products and to provide the same protections for all borrowers. It would remove a provision that currently allows mortgagees to require payment of interest up to the next installment due date, and instead require mortgagees to accept a prepayment at any time and in any amount without charging a post-payment charge, notwithstanding the terms of the loan. Under the proposed rule, monthly interest on the debt would be calculated on the actual unpaid principal balance as of the date prepayment is received. Comments on the proposal are due by May 12, 2014.
White House Big Data Initiative Seeks Public Comments On Privacy Issues
Last week, as part of the White House’s initiative on “big data” and privacy (led by John Podesta), the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued a request for information seeking public input regarding broad privacy-related issues. The request defines “big data” as “datasets so large, diverse, and/or complex, that conventional technologies cannot adequately capture, store, or analyze them.” It seeks comments on a number of issues, including: (i) the public policy implications of the collection, storage, analysis, and use of big data; (ii) the types of uses of big data that could measurably improve outcomes or productivity with further government action, funding, or research, and uses of big data that raise the most public policy concerns; (iii) the technological trends or key technologies which will affect the collection, storage, analysis and use of big data, and whether any are particularly promising for safeguarding privacy; (iv) how the policy frameworks or regulations for handling big data should differ between the government and the private sector; and (v) issues raised by the use of big data across jurisdictions. Comments are due by March 31, 2014.
Fannie Mae Delays Modification Policy Updates, Substitutes ARM Loan Indices
On March 12, Fannie Mae issued a notice postponing the April 1, 2014 implementation deadline for changes to its standard and streamlined modification programs announced in SVC-2013-28. Those changes expanded the programs to include loans with a pre-modification mark-to-market loan-to-value (MTMLTV) ratio of less than 80%. In the “near future,” Fannie Mae will announce a new effective date and updated requirements for such loans. Until the new requirements become effective, loans with MTMLTVs of less than 80% will continue to be eligible for a standard or streamlined modification if the loan servicer has fully implemented the previously-announced changes. In a separate notice relating to its adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) plans, Fannie Mae announced that it is requiring sellers and servicers to substitute certain LIBOR indices for the discontinued Federal Reserve Board CD index, and as a result it is retiring two standard ARM plans based on the discontinued index.