“Mortgage servicers will face greater limits on their ability to foreclose on a borrower while simultaneously negotiating a loan modification under new rules issued by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,” Bloomberg’s Carter Dougherty reports. The new rules “go further” than the bureau’s first proposal
“[W]hile the final rule is an improvement over the proposed rule, it does not go far enough to ensure fair treatment of borrowers. We urge the CFPB to immediately consider improvements, both on its own and through the interagency guidance process.”
AFR Executive Director Lisa Donner talks to NPR about the importance of holding mortgage lenders accountable for unaffordable loans.
“[P]ortions of today’s rule should have been stronger, and the CFPB has put one very important question on the table for further comment, creating a risk of further slippage.”
The rules… are “likely to resemble” an October draft that “extended a legal safe harbor to loans issued at prime interest rates to borrowers whose total debt-to-income ratio doesn’t exceed 43 percent.”
With new rules for mortgage lending and servicing due to be issued soon, the Bureau faces an important opportunity to make the housing market work better for families and communities.
Joint letter calls on Senate to approve Reed amendment giving enforcement authority to federal and state agencies.
“It was created… to protect families and the market from dangerous or explosive loans, the same way the Consumer Product Safety Commission protects against explosive toasters.”
In a letter to the Senate, 40 organizations ask the Senate to reject an amendment granting a legal safe harbor to all QM lenders.
On Nov. 8, 2012, AFR and the National Association of Consumer Advocates co-hosted this free webinar on abusive auto finance practices.