Colleen M. Couture

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On October 20, 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the Bureau) issued a final rule extending the Government-Sponsored Enterprise (GSE) Patch until the Bureau’s general qualified mortgage (QM) changes kick in. To keep from spooking the residential mortgage markets, the Bureau’s final rule accomplishes three main objectives:

  1. Retains the temporary GSE qualified mortgage (QM) safe harbor until compliance with the Bureau’s revised general QM definition becomes mandatory, but without any overlap period as some commenters requested;
  2. Establishes an implementation period to facilitate the transition to the revised general QM loan definition, and suggests the adoption of an “optional early compliance period” for transitioning to the revised general QM before the mandatory compliance date; and
  3. Resolves the frightful gap the Bureau’s proposal threatened to create by terminating the GSE Patch in accordance with the date of loan application, as opposed to the date of loan consummation.

For those who have been cowering in the shadows, the GSE Patch refers to a temporary compliance safe harbor the Bureau granted in 2014 for loans eligible for purchase by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Those GSE-eligible loans have been deemed to comply with federal ability-to-repay requirements applicable to closed-end residential mortgage loans. The GSE Patch grants QM status to certain loans excluded by the general QM definition – notably, loans with a debt-to-income ratio that exceeds 43%. The GSE Patch is set to expire on January 10, 2021, or when the GSEs are released from conservatorship, whichever occurs first. The Bureau is otherwise revising its general QM definition, in part to ensure that the Patch expiration does not deprive worthy borrowers of access to credit.

In establishing the end date for the GSE Patch, the Bureau’s final rule first clarifies that there will not be an “overlap period.”
Continue Reading That’s the Spirit: The Haunting of the CFPB’s GSE Patch

On May 15, House Democrats passed on the Heroes Act, a $3 trillion package that revives, among other things, many of the severe debt collection-related restrictions House Democrats have been pushing since the start of the pandemic.  Although the Heroes Act has no promise of becoming law, the Act, combined with other federal and state…

How do documents get signed and notarized when the parties signing the documents are faced with stay-at-home orders?  While both the federal Electronic Signatures In Global And National Commerce Act and state-enacted versions of the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act authorize notaries to perform electronic notarizations, electronic notarization is different than remote online notarization (RON).  Without…

COVID-19 has strained all aspects of life in the United States, including the housing and mortgage industries.  Social distancing, stay-at-home orders, and business closures have disrupted the abilities of many workers to complete their duties on a “business as usual” basis.  In the mortgage market, there is a direct impact on a mortgage lender’s ability…

The Taxpayer First Act (the “Act” or “TFA”) imposes new limits on the disclosure of US taxpayer tax information obtained on or after December 28, 2019. The Act is designed, among other things, to overhaul and modernize operations at the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”). One provision of the TFA has a direct impact on a recipient of taxpayer return information obtained directly from the IRS. Although questions remain about the reach of the new rule, it is already finding its way into structured finance and secondary market transactions.

Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code (the “Code”) governs the confidentiality and disclosure of tax returns and the information contained in tax returns. The TFA, effective as of December 28, 2019, amends Code Section 6103(c) to require taxpayers to consent to: (i) the particular purposes for which the recipient will use the taxpayer’s tax return information (the recipient may not use the information for any other purpose); and (ii) the sharing of any information from the tax return with other persons. Prior to the TFA amendment, Code Section 6103(c) simply authorized the IRS to release a taxpayer’s tax return information to parties designated by the taxpayer to receive it.
Continue Reading The Taxpayer First Act and the Impact on Secondary Market Participants  

On Friday, January 24, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“Bureau” or “CFPB”) published a Policy Statement clarifying how it intends to exercise its authority to prevent abusive acts or practices under the Dodd-Frank Act. According to CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger, the purpose of the Policy Statement is to promote clarity, which in turn should encourage both compliance with the law and the development of beneficial financial products for consumers.  The Policy Statement describes how the Bureau will use and develop the abusiveness standard in its supervision and enforcement work, pursuant to a three-part, forward-looking framework. Under the framework, the Bureau will: (1) generally rely on the abusiveness standard to address conduct only where the harm to consumers outweighs the benefit, (2) avoid making abusiveness claims where the claims rely on the same facts that the Bureau alleges are unfair or deceptive, and (3) not seek certain types of monetary relief against a covered person who made a good-faith effort to comply with a reasonable interpretation of the abusiveness standard. The Policy Statement suggests that the Bureau will use its abusiveness authority even less frequently than it has in the past. While that may be welcome news to regulated parties, it is also likely to mean slower development of meaningful guideposts as to what constitutes abusive conduct.
Continue Reading CFPB Announces Policy Regarding Prohibition on Abusive Acts or Practices