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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Wednesday published a compliance guide for small banks and mortgage lenders to better understand and comply with a rule that requires lenders to ensure borrowers have the ability to repay a loan as well as creates a separate class of loans known as "qualified mortgages."
April 10 -
Just a week after overhauling how mortgages are underwritten, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was set Thursday to unleash an additional series of rules dictating extensive new requirements for mortgage servicing.
January 17 -
The CFPB released its long-awaited final rule laying out how lenders must ensure borrowers have the ability to repay a loan, including creating a carve-out for qualified mortgages.
January 10
WASHINGTON — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed slight tweaks to help clarify mortgage rules first issued in January.
The proposal fills a timeline gap between the new and old escrow rules and clarifies the exemptions for several new mortgage regulations, including the ability-to-repay, qualified mortgage and escrow rules.
"We want these updates to provide further clarity and guidance on how to comply with the rules," the bureau said in a blog posting late Friday that went largely unnoticed. "They are an opportunity to address important questions raised by industry, consumer groups, and other agencies."
The exemptions in the mortgage rules added both relief and some confusion for lenders that initially thought they would not be able to write mortgages outside of the qualified mortgage rule. The bureau sought to clarify such exemptions by proposing to use the codes established by the USDA's Economic Research Service to define "rural" counties; and the HMDA (Home Mortgage Disclosure Act) data for "underserved" counties. The agency said it posted a preliminary list of counties on its website.
The CFPB also addressed a technical error that created a 6-month gap between the old escrow rule and the new escrow rule that expands protections for consumers on higher-priced mortgages. The agency has proposed a temporary provision so existing consumer protections will remain in effect until the new rule kicks in next January.
The entire proposal is open for comment until 15 days after it's published in the Federal Register.
The CFPB also said it plans to propose additional clarifications and guidance on its new mortgage rules later this month.
