The CFPB announced today that it expects to propose a rule to delay the July 1, 2021 date to comply with the new Qualified Mortgage (“QM”) rule.
The CFPB’s statement provides that the extension would allow lenders more time to make QM loans based on their debt-to-income ratio (and Appendix Q), or based on the
On February 4, 2021, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI or the Department) issued an invitation for stakeholder comments on potential rules that will govern the operations and authority of the Department. This invitation is the first opportunity for industry participants to weigh in on the functions of the DFPI—a newly reconstituted regulator whose oversight will significantly affect many financial services companies operating in California.
The DFPI (formerly known as the Department of Business Oversight) was established by the California Consumer Financial Protection Law (CCFPL), which was enacted last September. In addition to renaming and reorganizing one of California’s financial regulators, the CCFPL grants the DFPI authority very similar to that granted to the CFPB under the Dodd-Frank Act, including expanded regulatory and enforcement powers. And while many licensees are exempt from these new authorities—e.g., mortgage lenders licensed under the state’s Real Estate Law—uncertainty around their scope and implementation should lead all potentially relevant market participants to monitor and consider participating in the rulemaking process.
Continue Reading California DFPI Invites Comments on Rules Governing its Operations and Authority
Since the Inauguration on January 20th, the Biden Administration has busily issued orders to reverse certain policies of the prior administration. In customary fashion upon a change in political parties in the White House, President Biden’s Chief of Staff also sent a memorandum to executive departments and agencies to consider postponing pending rulemakings to allow review by the new slate of policymakers. Among those rules are two Qualified Mortgage (“QM”) Rules of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”).
New White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain’s memorandum specifies that for rules that have already been published or issued but have not yet taken effect, the agencies must consider postponing the rules’ effective dates for 60 days from the date of the memorandum (i.e., until March 21, 2021). If the agency postpones the effective date, the agency must consider opening a 30-day period for interested parties to provide more comments. The memorandum then instructs those agencies to consider whether even further delays are appropriate.
Speaking of engaging interested parties, the CFPB has been reconsidering QM issues for years. The agency has been spurred by a statutory requirement to assess and report on the 2013 QM Final Rule, as well as the January 10, 2021 expiration date of the special QM category for loans eligible for purchase by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac (the so-called “GSE Patch”). In all, over the course of several years, the CFPB has reportedly received more than 680 comments on QMs from creditors, industry groups, consumer advocacy groups, elected officials, and others. In response to that input, the CFPB issued a final rule extending the GSE Patch until the “mandatory compliance date” of a separate final rule that would revise the general QM category (or until the GSEs emerge from conservatorship), essentially erasing that looming GSE Patch expiration date. Then the CFPB issued two other final QM rules – one to revise the general QM definition and establish that mandatory compliance date, and one to create a seasoned QM category for certain mortgage loans that experience a period of timely payments.
In comparing the effective dates of those rulemakings to the White House’s January 20th memorandum, one can see that the CFPB successfully eliminated the January 2021 GSE Patch expiration date, because that rule became effective before the memorandum. However, the other two rules – which establish the Patch’s new expiration date/Mandatory Compliance Date (July 1, 2021), the new definition of QMs, and the seasoned QM – could get caught in the Biden Freeze.
Continue Reading Will the CFPB Freeze the GSE QM Patch?
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) issued two relatively welcome surprises yesterday. First, along with ditching a debt-to-income ratio (“DTI”) ceiling, the agency expanded its proposed general Qualified Mortgage (“QM”) to include loans up to 2.25 percentage points over the average prime offer rate. Mortgage lenders can opt in to the new QM as early as 60 days after the rule is published (so, likely by late February 2021), although compliance becomes mandatory July 1, 2021. Second, the CFPB will begin allowing loans to season into a QM after 36 months of timely payments, so long as the loan is not sold more than once (and is not securitized) during that time.
The CFPB otherwise recently issued a separate final rule, confirming once and for all that the GSE Patch – a temporary QM category for loans eligible for purchase by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac – would expire on the mandatory compliance date of the agency’s rule revising the general QM definition. Since 2014, in general terms, a closed-end residential mortgage loan could only constitute a QM if the borrower’s DTI did not exceed 43%, or if the loan were GSE-eligible. As the GSE Patch’s expiration date (January 10, 2021) loomed, the CFPB promised to rethink the 43% DTI requirement and provide for a smooth and orderly transition to a post-Patch QM. In considering the public comments it received, the CFPB decided to loosen up on a couple of its proposals.
Specifically, the new general QM and its compliance protection will apply, under the final rule, to a covered transaction with the following characteristics:
The final rule removes the 43% DTI threshold and the troublesome Appendix Q.
Continue Reading CFPB Issues New QM Definition and Seasoning Provisions
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:
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 September 15, 2020, the CFPB published a detailed outline of proposed options it is considering to implement a rule under Section 1071 of the Dodd Frank Act. Ten years ago, Section 1071 amended the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) to require that financial institutions collect and report information concerning credit applications made by women- or minority-owned businesses and by small businesses. Although the CFPB was tasked with drafting rules to implement Section 1071, it did not take significant steps to meet that obligation until 2017, when it reported on some preliminary research, and then later in November 2019, when it held an information-gathering symposium.
As we previously noted, once Section 1071 is implemented, certain financial institutions will be required to collect information regarding the race, sex, and ethnicity of the principal owners of small businesses and women- and minority-owned businesses and submit this information to the CFPB, similar to what is currently required by the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act for mortgage loans. The CFPB’s outline released this week proposes several potential options for developing the small business lending data collection rule and is a precursor to any future proposed rulemaking. At this stage, the CFPB is seeking feedback on the direction of the rule. Feedback and comments on the scope of the rule can be sent to 2020-SBREFA-1071@cfpb.gov until December 14, 2020. The CFPB is also seeking feedback on the potential impacts on small business entities and has requested submission of such feedback by November 9, 2020.
Below, we summarize the key aspects of the Bureau’s outline and its proposals regarding the scope of the rule.
Continue Reading CFPB Finally Makes Progress on Implementing Small Business Lending Data Collection Requirements
On Thursday, June 18, 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB” or “Bureau”) announced a new pilot program to issue advisory opinions (“Pilot AO Program”) on areas of regulatory or statutory uncertainty. The CFPB simultaneously issued a proposed procedural rule on a permanent advisory opinion program (“AO Program”). The Bureau intends to issue advisory opinions (“AOs”) to address ambiguities in legal requirements that are not suited to be addressed through other Bureau programs such as the Regulatory Inquiries Function and Compliance Aids. The proposed AO Program comes more than two years after industry participants requested such a program in response to the Bureau’s March 2018 Request for Information Regarding Bureau Guidance and Implementation Support.
The proposed AO Program is similar to those offered by other state and federal regulators and, if implemented properly, could provide much needed certainty for regulated entities and consumers alike. The AO Program is intended to address areas of regulatory and statutory uncertainty and provide publicly available guidance for similarly situated parties and affected persons. AOs will be issued as interpretive rules under the Administrative Procedures Act, published in the Federal Register, and signed by the Director of the CFPB. Where information submitted to the Bureau is information the requestor would not normally make public, however, the Bureau will treat it as confidential to the extent applicable under its confidentiality regulations. The CFPB will summarize the material facts of the request, and the AOs will apply to situations that conform to those facts. The AO will also indicate where a safe harbor may apply, such as those under certain consumer financial protection laws. The AO Program is not intended for situations that would require a regulatory change or to create bright-line rules where the regulation or statute is intended to require a fact-intensive analysis.
The AO Program will focus on four of the Bureau’s five statutory objectives under 12 U.S.C. 5511(b)—namely, that: (1) consumers are provided with timely and understandable information to make responsible decisions about financial transactions; (2) outdated, unnecessary, or unduly burdensome regulations are regularly identified and addressed in order to reduce unwarranted regulatory burdens; (3) Federal consumer financial law is enforced consistently, without regard to the status of a person as a depository institution, in order to promote fair competition; and (4) markets for consumer financial products and services operate transparently and efficiently to facilitate access and innovation.
Notably, the Bureau will not use the AO Program to address the statutory objective that “consumers are protected from unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices and from discrimination,” stating that “other regulatory tools are often more suitable for addressing” these issues.
On May 20, 2020, the Office of the US Comptroller of the Currency announced its final rule overhauling the Community Reinvestment Act regulations. The CRA requires insured depository institutions to participate in investment, lending, and service activities that help meet the credit needs of their assessment areas, particularly low- and moderate-income communities and small businesses
On Friday, the United States Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) finalized a regulation regarding the “Permissible Interest on Loans that are Sold, Assigned, or Otherwise Transferred” by national banks and federal savings associations. Initially proposed in November 2019, the regulation provides that interest on a loan that is permissible under provisions of federal banking laws establishing the interest authority of national banks and federal savings associations is not affected by a sale, assignment, or transfer of the loan—effectively permitting subsequent holders of loans originated by OCC-regulated entities to take advantage of the originators’ “Interest Exportation Authority.” The rule will be effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.
Continue Reading The OCC Finalizes “Madden Fix” Regulation, Codifying the “Valid-when-Made” Doctrine as Applicable to Loans Made by National Banks and Federal Savings Associations
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