On October 4, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced on its website that the deadline to request initial forbearance for a COVID-19 hardship for loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration (HUD/FHA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), or the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has been extended. Specifically, the CFPB tells borrowers
On August 31, the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) issued an industry letter to all supervised mortgage lending institutions and their affiliates on preventing sexual orientation discrimination in mortgage lending. New York’s Fair Lending Law prohibits discrimination in, among other things, the granting, withholding, extending, or renewing, or in the fixing of the
In Blackmon v. Ad Astra Recovery Services, an individual claiming to be Brittney Blackmon obtained a payday loan in her name and then never made a payment. The debt was subsequently assigned to defendant collection firm Ad Astra Recovery Services, Inc. (AARC). Years later, Blackmon contacted AARC by telephone to dispute the debt. Blackmon
On June 17, the president signed legislation designating “Juneteenth National Independence Day, June 19” as a federal holiday. Because the legislation took effect immediately, it raised compliance questions for residential mortgage lenders, which must take federal holidays into account when calculating waiting periods for rescissions of closed-end loans under the Truth in Lending Act (TILA)
In WVMF Funding v. Palmero, the Supreme Court of Florida quashed the Third District Court of Appeals’ holding in OneWest Bank, FSB v. Palmero, 283 So. 3d 346 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019) that Mrs. Palmero was a “borrower” under a mortgage “as a matter of law.” In its holding, the Court emphasized that
On June 28, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a final rule to amend Regulation Z’s mortgage servicing requirements in order to “establish temporary special safeguards to help ensure that borrowers have time before foreclosure to explore their options, including loan modifications and selling their homes.”
The rule, which applies to federally regulated mortgage
In Heinz v. Carrington Mortgage Services LLC, the Eighth Circuit held that the mere inclusion of boilerplate disclosure language does not transform an otherwise benign informational communication into one meant to induce payment by the debtor under the “animating purpose” test, which makes a holistic consideration of an individual communication’s purpose to determine whether
On March 18, the West Virginia legislature passed Senate Bill 5, amending the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act (WVCCPA). The amendments will apply to all causes of action filed on or after June 16, 2021, the effective date of the amendments.
The amendments signal a continuing trend in West Virginia toward equalizing
On April 27, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (CFPB) issued a final rule to delay the mandatory compliance date for the General QM Final Rule until October 1, 2022. The CFPB stated that it issued the rule “to help ensure access to responsible, affordable mortgage credit and to preserve flexibility for consumers affected by
On April 5, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR) to amend Regulation Z, specifically to “prevent avoidable foreclosures” due to the COVID-19 pandemic “as the emergency federal foreclosure protections expire.”
The NPR mainly would do three things for loans secured by a borrower’s principal residence: