January 2005
Document Systems, Inc. (DSI), has added two attorneys and a paralegal to its Legal Department, which is headed by General Counsel, Bill Lambropoulos. The Legal Department is responsible for handling all legal matters involving DSI, from negotiating, drafting, reviewing/revising contracts with its vendors, handling the day-to-day legal affairs of the company, to ensuring that DSI's products are compliant with applicable law. Renee M. Smith, Esq., and Melanie A. Feliciano, Esq., both join DSI as Assistant General Counsel, and Dhiren K. Sharma serves as paralegal to the Department.
During a recent, nationwide sweep of mortgage companies, the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") found that two mortgage companies, Nationwide Mortgage Group, Inc. ("Nationwide"), and Sunbelt Lending Services, Inc. ("Sunbelt"), failed to comply with the FTC's Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act Safeguards Rule. Although many companies are in compliance with its Safeguards Rule, the FTC's charges against Nationwide and Sunbelt should give pause to all residential mortgage lenders and brokers.
The Wisconsin Responsible High Cost Mortgage Lending law (the "Act") becomes effective for loans the applications for which are received by a lender on or after February 1, 2005. Click here to view a copy of the Act (codified as Wis. Stats. 428.202 et seq.). The Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions has also promulgated rules (the "Rules"), effective February 1, 2005, that are designed to clarify some of the Act's provisions. Click here to view the Rules.
Did you know that DocMagic offers HELOC documents? Due to Reg. Z requirements and the unique details of each program, the loan documents must be customized to properly disclose the payment terms, fees, minimum payment examples, an historical table showing example payments for the past 15 years, and other requirements. The DocMagic Credit Agreements are tailored to work with our HELOC Security Instruments. And, we provide all the necessary disclosures in your package. If you're interested in using DocMagic to efficiently and effectively generate compliant HELOC documents, fill out our Questionnaire or contact Rick Leonard (rickl@docmagic.com) for more information.
The Georgia Department of Banking and Finance adopted final rules that became effective on September 21, 2004. The final rules govern a variety of topics, ranging from written disclosures that mortgage lenders and brokers must give before accepting fees, good faith estimates made by brokers and lenders, to books and records that licensees and registrants must maintain. The final rules can be here.
When the California predatory lending law (CA Financial Code Section 4970 et seq.) (the "Covered Loan Law") became effective on July 1, 2002, we noted that there was some confusion regarding the treatment of yield spread premiums and other lender-paid back end compensation for purposes of the Covered Loan Law's total points and fees test. Based on our interpretation of the applicable provisions of the Covered Loan Law, we concluded that such compensation should not be included as points and fees. In a recent California appellate court case, the court reached the same conclusion that we did: YSPs should not be included as points and fees under the Covered Loan Law. Wolski v. Fremont Investment & Loan, 125 Cal. App. 4th 12, December 2, 2004.
In order to keep DocMagic software users better apprised of document changes and additions as they occur, DSI posts listings of all newly created and revised documents. Here is the list of forms created or modified in November and December, 2004.
The following article is reprinted from Basis Points® , Vol. 3, Issue 10, Copyright © 2004, with the permission of CounselorLibrary.com, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. In its Announcement 04-06, released September 28, 2004, Fannie Mae addressed a variety of Selling and Servicing Guide topics, including a new policy related to mandatory arbitration clauses in loans it purchases or securitizes that close on or after October 31, 2004.
The following article is reprinted from Basis Points® , Vol. 3, Issue 11, Copyright © 2004, with the permission of CounselorLibrary.com, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. On November 3, 2004, the Massachusetts Division of Banks issued temporary emergency regulations concerning Mass. Gen. Laws chapter 183 Section 28C, prohibiting mortgage lenders from knowingly refinancing a home mortgage loan consummated within the past 60 months unless the refinancing is in the borrower's interest. The temporary emergency regulations are posted at www.mass.gov/dob/209cmr53.htm.
|
