Effective July 21, 2011, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) will be administered and enforced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
If you are a consumer with a question or complaint related to your mortgage or mortgage servicer, please contact the CFPB’s Consumer Response team at (855) 411-2372 (or (855) 729-2372 TTY/TDD), or by fax number (855) 237-2392, or click here.
If you are a settlement service provider with questions about RESPA, please email the CFPB at CFPB_RESPAInquiries@cfpb.gov.
The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) ensures that consumers throughout the nation are provided with more helpful information about the cost of the mortgage settlement and protected from unnecessarily high settlement charges caused by certain abusive practices.
The most recent RESPA Rule makes obtaining mortgage financing clearer and, ultimately, cheaper for consumers. The new Rule includes a required, standardized Good Faith Estimate (GFE) to facilitate shopping among settlement service providers and to improve disclosure of settlement costs and interest rate related terms. The HUD-1 was improved to help consumers determine if their actual closing costs were within established tolerance requirements.
Highlights
Consumers
RESPA is about closing costs and settlement procedures. RESPA requires that consumers receive disclosures at various times in the transaction and outlaws kickbacks that increase the cost of settlement services. RESPA is a HUD consumer protection statute designed to help homebuyers be better shoppers in the home buying process, and is enforced by HUD.
Industry