Applied Business Software (ABS), the developer of The Mortgage Office loan origination and servicing software, has announced a software update that will aid loan originators with Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) regulations. The Mortgage Office  software update now calculates and prints federally compliant documents. Effective Jan. 1, 2010, RESPA will enforce the largest sweeping change to the process of loan originations since 1974.Read more

The Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) has recommended that the Federal Reserve Board strengthen a proposal to ban routine kickbacks for steering borrowers into unnecessarily risky or expensive home loans. In recent years, these kickbacks (often called "yield-spread premiums") have cost consumers billions of dollars. If finalized as proposed, the kickback ban would apply to mortgage brokers, loan officers, and any party that originates mortgages for lenders who fund the loans.Read more

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has announced that it is immediately suspending Equitable Trust Mortgage Corporation (ETM) of Baltimore, Md., thereby preventing the company from originating and underwriting new FHA-insured mortgages. FHA is imposing this action because ETM improperly overcharged 37 borrowers for broker and loan origination fees in excess of what the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) currently allows.Read more

With the coming of fall, we will experience many changes, and I don’t mean only in the weather … Congress has concluded its summer recess and has returned to Washington, D.C. Without going into detail on each issue, the following are a few issues that the National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) is working on.Read more