Mortgages

One part of our proposed rule to improve the disclosures consumers receive when applying for and closing on a mortgage was a change to the current definition of “finance charge.” The finance charge is intended to reflect the cost of credit for consumers as a dollar amount. It’s used to calculate the Annual Percentage Rate or “APR.”

The proposed rule would eliminate numerous exceptions that exclude common costs (such as title insurance) from the finance charge. We want APR to be a more accurate reflection of the overall cost of credit. However, higher APRs and finance charges could affect the number of loans subject to other legal requirements and protections, such as special disclosures and restrictions for high-cost mortgages. In another rulemaking, we also proposed an adjustment that would prevent that from happening, by changing the coverage test for the high-cost mortgage protections to account for the higher APRs.

Comments on the proposed changes to the definition of the finance charge and the proposed change to the high-cost mortgage coverage test were originally due on September 7, 2012. Based on the feedback received, the Bureau now believes that it is appropriate to provide the public with additional time to prepare their comments. These comments are now due November 6, 2012. All other deadlines under both proposed rules remain unchanged.

For more information about the extensions, please see:

• Notice of Comment Extension for proposed changes to the definition of the finance charge
• Notice of Comment Extension on whether and how to account for the implications of a more inclusive finance charge on the scope of HOEPA coverage

Your opinion is important – weigh in now.

As we talked about on Friday, the Bureau is trying to put the customer service back in mortgage servicing. We are proposing nine rules to address issues that consumers face when paying their mortgage loans, dealing with escrow accounts, or figuring out what to do when they have fallen behind on their loans. We want to get rid of surprises and runarounds by servicers, which are often hired by creditors and investors to manage home loans.

You may not know this, but getting comments from the public – you – is an essential part of the agency rulemaking process. Federal law generally requires that the public get an opportunity to read a proposed rule and submit comments before the rule is finalized. Agencies publish the proposed rules in the Federal Register.

All too often, this opportunity passes, and the public doesn’t weigh in. This, in part, is because not everybody skims the Federal Register every day.

We want to make it easier for consumers and small businesses to tell us what they think about the rules that we are working on. To do that, we’ve partnered with Cornell University, which has launched a project called Regulation Room as part of the Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative, to get your take on our new proposed mortgage servicing rules.

RegulationRoom.org is not a government website. It is operated by students and staff at Cornell, with the goal of making it easy for people to participate in the rulemaking process. They are researching how to remove barriers to public participation, and we are excited to be partnering with them.

• First, the Cornell folks realized that all too often, the public is unaware of the rule-writing process, so they are spreading the word through a social media campaign.
• Next, they realized that most members of the public are not interested in reading a Federal Register notice that may easily be 100 pages or more. They use “layering” of information so you can quickly get an overview, but have the ability to dive deeper if you are interested in a particular point or subtopic.
• Also, they realized rulemakings involve complicated issues that can benefit from dialogue rather than just one-time letter writing. Besides presenting the information, Regulation Room hosts a forum for discussion. Even better, the forum is moderated to help answer questions and get more detailed information and feedback. Feel free to say that you do or don’t like our rule, but be prepared for a moderator to ask you to be more specific: Why do you feel that way? How could it be improved?
• Finally, they realized that most members of the public are unfamiliar with the formal commenting process at Regulations.gov (the official government site). So Regulation Room presents information and conducts a conversation right when a proposed rule first comes out, and then closes its forum down about a week before the end of the comment period so that the Cornell team can assemble all the feedback they have received into an official comment. People who have participated get one last chance to react to the summary before it is submitted formally to the CFPB through regulations.gov. And, like all other formal comments, we will read and consider it.

We are excited about this project for two reasons.

First: We really do want to hear what you think of our proposals on mortgage servicing.

Second: We want to learn as much as possible from this experience about how to get more public feedback in future rulemakings.

So head on over to Regulation Room and let us know what you think!

Today, we’re proposing new mortgage servicing rules.

So, what’s mortgage servicing and why does it need the new rules?

The short answer is that mortgage servicing is the processing of mortgage payments. That may sound simple, but as many borrowers have learned in the aftermath to the financial crisis, it can get complicated very quickly.

When you make a mortgage payment, part of that pays interest on the money that you borrowed, and part of that actually repays the money that you borrowed. Often the company that owns your mortgage hires someone else – a servicer – to collect and apply these payments, along with handling other day-to-day responsibilities in administering the loan.

This can be a challenge due to sophisticated mortgage products, partial payments, delinquent borrowers, fees, errors and misunderstandings. And when consumers can’t make their mortgage payments, servicers are the ones that decide what to do. As we saw during the recession, not all servicers were prepared to handle these challenges. And that can have very bad consequences for consumers.

Why are you proposing new rules?
When an agency writes a new rule, that rule must first be proposed, and the public has an opportunity to comment on it. After we get your comments we’ll review them and consider them while we’re writing the final rule.

How did you arrive at these rules?
Several of them are required by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (which we call the Dodd-Frank Act for short). We developed others in response to issues in the marketplace. To do this, we have spent a lot of that time talking to the public because we want to write rules that work. For us, rules that work are rules that protect consumers, are consistent with other rules that apply to servicers, recognize the impact on lenders and mortgage investors, and do not cause unnecessary burden on industry. So, in addition to meeting with consumers, consumer advocates, servicers, trade associations, and mortgage investors, we worked with a design team, conducted consumer testing, and met with small servicers to develop these proposals.

What are the new rules?
We are proposing rules on mortgage servicing to implement new laws in the Dodd-Frank Act. Our proposals have new rules that are designed to put the service back in mortgage servicing, and will benefit borrowers by eliminating surprises and run-arounds. The rules are divided into two proposals – one to amend the regulations in the Truth in Lending Act (Regulation Z) and the other to amend the regulations in the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (Regulation X). The rules are:

• Monthly mortgage statements
  Servicers would be required to provide clear billing statements including information on the loan, amount due, and application of past payments.
• Warnings before interest rate adjustments
  Servicers would be required to provide consumers with a new notice 6 to 7 months before the first rate adjustment, as well as earlier and improved notices before rate adjustments causing an increase in a consumer’s mortgage payments.
• Force-placed insurance
  Servicers can only charge borrowers for buying insurance on the property when they have a reasonable basis to believe that the borrowers have let their own insurance lapse and have given borrowers two notices estimating the cost of the “force-placed insurance.”
• Early outreach for delinquent borrowers
  Getting a delinquent borrower back on track requires early intervention and information about options available.
• Prompt crediting of payments
  Payments must be applied as of the day they are received, and the handling of partial payments is clarified.
• Accurate information management
  Servicers must have reasonable policies to ensure that when borrowers provide documents and information the servicers can find and use them.
• Error resolution and information requests
  Mistakes happen, but they need to get fixed. Servicers must address borrower concerns about possible errors within certain timeframes and provide the information they request.
• Direct and ongoing access to servicer personnel
  Delinquent borrowers will be able to contact the right people at their servicer to get information and take steps to avoid foreclosure.
• Evaluation for alternatives to foreclosure
  Servicers would be required to appropriately review borrower applications for loan modifications or other options to avoid foreclosure.

How can I get involved?
We want your comments by October 9 – here’s how to weigh in:

• Read a summary of these proposals or the whole Truth in Lending Act proposal and the whole Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act proposal, and either:
• Participate in the formal comment process by going to Regulations.gov (TILA Servicing or RESPA servicing) to send us your comments, or
• Visit our partner, the Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative, to read other summaries of the rules on www.regulationroom.org and participate in an on-line conversation about them. Cornell will share with us a summary of the feedback that you and others provide.

 
Update (8/20/12): The proposals were updated to reflect corrections and other changes on page 9 of each concerning litigation and settlements concerning servicing.”

Dear CFPB,

Recently, I saw your notice of proposed rulemaking to combine and simplify existing mortgage disclosures. It’s 1,099 pages long! Why does it take so many pages to create something that’s supposed to be easy to use and understand?

Sincerely,
Interested in your regulations

Dear Interested,

This is a great question, one you’re not alone in asking — 1,099 is a lot of pages, as those of us who were involved in writing them can attest.

Let’s start with some background. Currently, two federal laws – the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) – mandate that consumers receive disclosures of certain information about mortgage loans. The Dodd-Frank Act required the CFPB to propose a rule to combine the TILA and RESPA disclosures.

If you want to see the new combined disclosures, combine and simplify existing mortgage disclosures check them out here. If you want to see what the proposal means for you, we’ve provided summaries, one on what it would mean for consumers and one with more technical detail.

You said “propose a rule to combine the disclosures” instead of just “propose combined disclosures.” Why?
It’s an important distinction. The rule explains how we would expect industry to use the disclosures: when to issue them, how they apply to different loans, what various terms mean, etc.

And that proposed rule is 1,099 pages?
Actually, no. We are not proposing 1,099 pages of new regulations. That page count is for the notice of the proposed rule, not the rule. Like notices of proposed rulemaking issued by other agencies (particularly the Federal Reserve Board), our proposal consists of three basic parts: (1) the preamble explaining the proposal; (2) the text of the proposed regulations; and (3) guidance on how to comply with those regulations.

In terms of pages, the new regulations are only a small part. Most of the pages explain what we are doing and why we are doing it. As required by law, we analyze the costs and benefits of the proposal for consumers and industry. We also provide thorough guidance on how to comply including samples of completed forms, which the industry requested during our outreach and Small Business Review Panel process. Because of the variability of mortgage loan and real estate transactions, industry wanted specific guidance for many different potential scenarios. This added to the page count.

Here’s how the notice breaks down:

Content	Pages
Preamble Directions on how to submit comments Summary of the proposed rule Overview of the mortgage market and the mortgage shopping process Summary of 43 years of TILA and RESPA mortgage disclosure regulation Summary of the Dodd-Frank Act provisions requiring the Bureau to combine the TILA and RESPA mortgage disclosures and related Dodd-Frank Act mortgage rulemakings Summary of the Bureau’s outreach, disclosure testing, and Small Business Review Panel Statement of the Bureau’s legal authority Detailed explanations of the reasons for each aspect of the proposed rule and requests for comment Analyses of the costs and benefits of the proposed rule for consumers and industry, as required by the Dodd-Frank Act, the Regulatory Flexibility Act (as amended by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act), and the Paperwork Reduction Act	684
Proposed amendments to regulations New rules Technical and conforming amendments to existing rules	209
Proposed guidance regarding compliance with the amended regulations	205
Signature page	1
TOTAL	1,099

The preamble is long.
It is. The preamble provides context for the proposed forms and regulatory changes. The mortgage market is big, and mortgage disclosure regulation has 43 years of history. Also, before writing the rule, we spent a lot of time talking to industry and consumers and analyzing costs and benefits. That’s a lot of context, and that means a long preamble.

Why bother with all this context?
First, some of it is required by law. Second, we believe that part of our commitment to open government is providing more rather than less information about our work. Finally, we want your comments to help us understand the market better, and providing context can lead to more informative comments. Explaining what we considered in writing the proposal makes it easier to craft specific responses or to draw our attention to something you think we’ve missed. Comments that provide new insight or information can be the ones that have the greatest impact on what we do next.

That leaves 415 pages. Only part of that is new rules, though. What else is left?
The technical and conforming amendments make sure the new rules don’t conflict with existing rules, that they make the right cross-references, etc. This actually accounts for more than half of the proposed regulatory language.

The proposed guidance explains what certain regulatory language means in context. For example, the phrase “within three business days” appears a lot in this notice, as in: a creditor must deliver the loan estimate disclosure “within three business days” of application. But what counts as a business day? If a bank is closed the Friday before an Independence Day that falls on Saturday, does that Friday count as a business day? (Answer for purposes of delivery of this disclosure: yes.) Providing guidance that clarifies issues like these can save time, energy, and costs for both industry and regulators.

And the signature gets its own page?
Yes. We don’t expect a lot of comments on that page.

So where can I comment on this notice of proposed rulemaking?
First, we hope you’ll take a look at the Know Before You Owe project that helped us develop the proposed disclosures. Then, review the rule and submit your comments at Regulations.gov.

Since we launched on July 21st 2011, we’ve heard directly from consumers about the challenges they face in the marketplace, brought their concerns to the attention of financial institutions, and helped address their complaints. Accepting, resolving, and analyzing consumer complaints is an integral part of our work.

This week, we’ll be featuring stories from consumers who we have helped, and who have agreed to let the CFPB make their stories public.

Ronald, a 77-year-old Army veteran and retired businessman from Georgia believed he had paid off his mortgage but found his mortgage servicer said he still owed money.

Ronald, who bought his home in 1979 for $38,000, was blind and had trouble finding the paperwork to prove he owned his home free and clear. So he continued to hand over $100 each month to the lender. After the CFPB got involved at the end of 2011, the bank determined that Ronald had in fact paid off his mortgage in 2007 before the current servicer took over the loan. The bank refunded Ronald’s money at 3 percent interest and sent him a check for $30,000.

Nelda, a 67-year-old data entry clerk from California, received a $2,000 charge on her credit card for purchases she never made.

She says she contacted the card issuer to report the mistake and found out the charges were systematically accrued on one day by someone withdrawing $200 at a time. She told the issuer it was fraud. But she says the issuer said she was still on the hook for the money because it was her card. The charges set off a cascade of bad events for Nelda that lasted nearly a year. Eventually, the debt was sold to a collection agency that took Nelda to court.

After the CFPB got involved, the card issuer accepted that the charges were fraudulent and agreed that Nelda was not responsible.

Learn more

To see more about how we handle consumer complaints, read our Consumer Response Snapshot and to see all credit card complaints, visit our consumer complaint database.

This is the third post in a series on the Know Before You Owe project for simplifying mortgage disclosures. Last week, we explored the origins of the project and the process that brought us to this point. Today, we’re explaining the proposed rule we’re issuing to make mortgage disclosures more effective and easier to use.

For the majority of Americans, buying a home means taking out a loan. A mortgage loan is the biggest financial commitment most of them will make in their lifetimes. With something so important, you ought to be able to get up-front, easy-to-understand information that lets you compare different loan offers and find the one that’s best for you.

That idea was the starting point for the Know Before You Owe mortgage disclosure project. The Dodd-Frank Act requires us to combine the Truth in Lending and Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act disclosures, and we began Know Before You Owe to make sure the people who would use the new forms were part of the process of creating them.

Today, we’re presenting the results. After more than a year of research, testing, writing, and review, we’re submitting a proposed rule to the Federal Register to create new, easier-to-use mortgage disclosures.

Take a closer look and learn more about it.

There is more to the proposal than just the forms. Today, rules known as “Regulation X” and “Regulation Z” tell industry how to fill out the forms. We are proposing new rules in Regulation Z to tell industry how to fill out the new forms. We are also proposing commentary that interprets the rules to help industry understand how to comply. To help you see how the rules and the commentary interact with each other and the forms, we are showing you the applicable rules and commentary for each section of the first page of the Loan Estimate.

We’re doing this to save you the trouble of flipping pages to find the right rule for filling out the form, and then flipping more pages to find the right comment to help you understand that rule. Instead of you hunting for the rules and commentary, they will come to you.

We think this is a helpful way to present the proposed rules and commentary to busy industry stakeholders. If this is useful, we will explore doing it for the rest of the rule. See for yourself.

The proposed rule and forms would have benefits for both consumers and industry:

• Simpler than the old forms. Lenders can explain the terms more easily using fewer forms. Consumers, meanwhile, can understand and compare different mortgages more effectively, and compare their estimated and final terms and costs more easily, helping them make the right decisions for themselves and their families.
• Highlight information consumers need. Interest rates, monthly payments, the loan amount, and closing costs are all right there on the first page. Also, the first page explains how the interest rates, payments, and loan amount might change over the life of the loan, including the highest they can go. The forms also offer more information about taxes, insurance, and other property costs so consumers can better understand the total cost.
• Easier to look out for risks. The forms provide clear warnings about features some consumers may want to avoid, such as adjustable interest rates and payments, prepayment penalties, and loan balances that increase (negative amortization). The proposed rule also contains provisions to make estimates more reliable. And because the proposed rule requires lenders to keep electronic copies of the forms they give to consumers, industry and regulators will be able to address compliance questions more easily.
• More time to consider choices. The lender or broker must give the estimate within three business days of applying, and they must receive the closing disclosure at least three business days before closing.

The rule will be published in the Federal Register soon, and when it is, we’ll update this blog post to let you know how to comment.

In the meantime, please, check out the new forms and the process that brought us here. We’ve got a lot more for you to explore: a side-by-side comparison of the new forms and the old ones, a visual timeline of how we got here, summaries for consumers and for industry, and reports on what we learned.

Thank you for all your hard work. We couldn’t have done this without you.