ALTA Comment on Passage of Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act by U.S. House of Representatives

December 14, 2009

Kurt Pfotenhauer, chief executive officer of the American Land Title Association, released the following comment following the passage of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act by the U.S. House of Representatives:

"Most notable from the perspective of the title insurance industry was what wasn't included in HR 4173. We were able to carve the title industry out of the most onerous federal regulation under the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency and we were once again able to defeat the mortgage cram down proposal in a floor vote. ALTA will continue to work with the Senate to craft legislation that won’t conflict with existing state regulation and cause more confusion in the market place.

The adoption of a cram down amendment would have injected more risk into the mortgage market and detracted from efforts by Congress and the Obama Administration to stabilize the housing market. The massive potential losses generated by judicial modifications would have reversed recent strengthening of the credit sector while increasing consumer costs."


Contact ALTA at 202-296-3671 or communications@alta.org.