On September 24, U.S. District Judge James S. Moody, Jr., of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, issued a preliminary injunction against several law firms accused by the attorneys general of Connecticut and Florida of charging illegal upfront fees to distressed homeowners in a mortgage rescue scam.
Judge Moody agreed that
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has issued a decision upholding a district court ruling that several defendants based in the U.S. and Canada deceived consumers through a telemarketing scheme designed to sell them phony mortgage assistance and debt relief programs, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
The Court’s decision
On August 21, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has selected seven mortgage companies and five vendors to participate in a three-month pilot program that will aim to determine whether electronic filings could improve mortgage closings. The pilot program is a part of the CFPB’s “Know Before You Owe” mortgage initiative.
Earlier this year in
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has published proposed changes to Regulation C, which implements the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The HMDA was enacted by Congress in 1975, and on July 21, 2011, the rule-writing authority of Regulation C was transferred to the CFPB. HMDA requires covered depository and nondepository institutions to collect and publicly
On August 12, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued an order related to the advertising of mortgage rates that may provide valuable insight into the CFPB’s broader perspective on what constitutes misleading statements in advertising and publishing of rates.
The CFPB accused Amerisave Mortgage Corporation (“Amerisave”), its affiliate company Novo Appraisal Management Company (“Novo”), and
The Federal Reserve recently published its quarterly “Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices,” based on a survey of large domestic and foreign banks. The survey suggested that the implementation of Ability-to-Repay and Qualified Mortgage rule has resulted in lenders making fewer loans. Under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer
In a June 2 decision, Judge Richard Posner, writing for a unanimous panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, criticized a number of statements and other aspects within a notice of class action settlement that had been approved by the district court. In response to a number of objections
In a letter dated July 29, addressed to Richard Cordray, Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, two Republicans – Representative Jeb Hensarling, Chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services, and Mike Crapo, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs – continue to question the validity of the CFPB’s
TCPA litigation is running rampant in courts throughout the country. Automatic telephone dialing systems, or “ATDSs” or “autodialers”, are at the heart of virtually every TCPA case involving cell phones. Why? Because if a call to a person’s cell phone was not made with an ATDS as defined by the statute, there is virtually no
Lenders and servicers are not the only targets in the crosshairs of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau when it comes to foreclosures. The CFPB, the Federal Trade Commission, and fifteen states announced a sweep against foreclosure relief companies that allegedly used deceptive marketing tactics to rip off distressed homeowners. The CFPB and the FTC have