Updated: April 17, 2008 (Revisions are highlighted in yellow) 

On March 6, 2008, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released the maximum conforming loan limits as mandated by the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 (the Act).  The new "conforming jumbo" loan limits for certain high cost counties in certain states will apply through December 31, 2008.  A complete list of the counties with new conforming jumbo loan limits is available here.  Fannie Mae quickly implemented the new conforming loan limits and published additional detailed eligibility, underwriting, pricing and delivery information.  For additional Fannie Mae information, click here.  On April 17, 2008, Freddie Mac announced it was purchasing billions of dollars of conforming jumbo loans from Wells Fargo, Chase, CitiMortgage and WAMU.  For a copy of this release, click here. is still working through the details regarding their purchase of these new conforming jumbo mortgages.  For additional Freddie Mac information, click here.*

On March 14, 2008, HUD published a proposed rule designed to "simply and improve" RESPA-required disclosures "to protect consumers from unnecessarily high settlement costs."  Comments to the proposed rule are due by May 13, 2008.  A copy of the proposed rule is available here.   Expect the proposed rule to generate a boatload of comments in the upcoming weeks.

Late last year, the State of Nevada amended its predatory lending law (commonly referred to as the "Unfair Lending Practices Act" (ULPA)).  The ULPA is set forth in NRS 598D.010 through 598D.150, inclusive, and is available here.  A copy of AB 440, which amended the ULPA, is available here.  The 2007 amendments to the ULPA, among other things, expand greatly the scope of loans covered by the ULPA's unfair lending restrictions and penalties, so much so as to render DocMagic's Nevada high cost loan test unnecessary for the reasons stated in this article.

This month we added detailed high cost information for the state of Vermont and updated our high cost memo on Connecticut to our Predatory Lending page. 

Updated: July 3, 2008 (Revisions are highlighted in yellow)

With the recent increased interest in FHA loans, we have received many questions regarding the impact of high cost tests on certain fees and charges, including upfront mortgage insurance premiums (MIP) paid by borrowers in connection with FHA loans.  For purposes of the federal Section 32 and most state-specific high cost tests, the fact that the loan is HUD-insured has no impact on the respective high cost tests: finance charges (including MIP) paid to HUD are points and fees and, consequently, are included in the high cost tests.  However, some state-specific high cost tests apply different rules.

The state of Pennsylvania adopted HB 296, which became effective on February 16, 2008.  This Bill increases the returned check fee permitted under 18 Pa. Stat. § 4105(e)(3) from $20 to $50.  Loans that are affected by this change include "secondary mortgage loans" that are greater than $5,000, but less than or equal to $50,000.  For the definition of "secondary lien loans," click here. 

On February 25, 2008, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued OCC Bulletin 2008-4 to inform national banks of certain flood hazard determination practices that potentially expose national banks to compliance and operational risks.  On February 26, 2008, FIS Flood Services published its response.  This prompt and thorough response to its customers is just one example of the high degree of professionalism exhibited by FIS Flood Services in the conduct of its business, and only the most recent confirmation that DocMagic made the correct decision in making FIS Flood Services the primary flood hazard determination provider for DocMagic software customers.  For more information about the flood hazard determination services available through DocMagic, click here.

Under Regulation B (Equal Credit Opportunity Act), the ECOA notice that needs to be given to the borrower must have the name and address of the federal agency that administers compliance with this law.  The list of federal agencies with names and addresses may be found under Appendix A of the Act.  For those creditors that fall under the regulation of the Federal Trade Commission agency, the address that needs to be included in the notice is:

This month DSI posts updates to the loan programs of Chase - Wholesale Division and U.S. Bank, N.A. to its Compliance page.  Find out the description of each investor's loan program, which promissory notes, prepayment riders and addenda are used, and what the rate caps and interest-only periods are for variable rate loans by visiting our Investor Updates page.

A new column entitled "Signature Selection" has been added to all of the disclosure matrices posted online to the Compliance website.  This list includes our multistate, state, pipeline, and FHA disclosure matrices.  In this column, you will find what the default signature selection is for a particular form.  If a form has no borrower type present in the signature block, then the signature selection column will have N/A.  The disclosure matrices may be found here.  Please note that some investors, lenders, and title companies may have different signature selection requirements than those set forth in the matrices.

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 February 2008.