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Mealey's Mortgage Lending

  • October 14, 2021

    Loan Servicer Seeks Dismissal Of Borrower Claims In Suit Over Payment Increase

    DALLAS — Dismissal of a borrower’s claims under the Texas Finance Code and for common-law fraud against a mortgage servicer stemming from the servicer’s alleged failure to notify the borrower that it had been inserted by her mortgage lender as the servicer of the loan and its increase of her monthly payment on the loan is necessary because the borrower’s claim that the servicer lacks any “verification or proof of ownership of the mortgage is a red herring,” the servicer argues in an Oct. 13 motion to dismiss filed in Texas federal court.

  • October 08, 2021

    Trial Set In Mortgagors’ Anti-Kickback Suit Against Insurers, Captive Reinsurer

    FRESNO — A jury trial on allegations by a class of mortgagors that private mortgage insurers and a captive reinsurer violated anti-kickback provisions of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) will commence Feb. 15, according to an Oct. 5 notice in the case before a federal court in California.

  • October 07, 2021

    Parties Seek Final Approval Of $2.6M Settlement In RESPA Kickback Scheme Suit

    BALTIMORE — A federal judge should grant final approval of a $2,606,776 settlement in a class action alleging that a mortgage loan servicer engaged in an illegal kickback scheme with a title and settlement services company in violation of the Real Estate Settlement Practices Act (RESPA) and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) because the proposed settlement meets all statutory requirements for approval, the parties argue in a motion for final approval of the settlement filed Oct. 5 in Maryland federal court.

  • October 07, 2021

    PNC Alleged To Have Inflated Mortgage Loan Principals During COVID-19 Pandemic

    BALTIMORE — Borrowers who have mortgage loans with PNC Bank NA and entered into COVID-19 deferral agreements with the lender filed a nationwide class action against PNC in Maryland federal court Oct. 5, alleging that the lender breached the terms of the deferral agreements by double-charging borrowers when it added the total past-due amounts to the outstanding principal on their loans.

  • October 05, 2021

    Lack Of Proper Notice Should Allow HBOR Claims To Proceed, Borrower Argues

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California should deny a mortgage lender and loan servicer’s motion to dismiss a borrower’s claims stemming from their alleged failure to provide him with the required notice of certain loss mitigation options they would offer him in an effort to stave off a foreclosure sale on his property because the borrower has sufficiently shown that he never received the notice and the defendants have been unable to show that the notice was actually sent, the borrower argues in an Oct. 4 opposition brief filed in California federal court.

  • October 04, 2021

    High Court Will Not Hear Borrowers’ Appeal In Foreclosure Lawsuit

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 4 declined review in a case filed by borrowers who alleged that the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals erred in affirming a federal district court’s dismissal of their lawsuit seeking to redeem their property after their home was sold at a sheriff’s sale due to their defaulting on the mortgage.

  • October 04, 2021

    Supreme Court Will Not Take Up Borrower’s Mortgage Modification Appeal

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 4 held that it will not hear an appeal of a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel’s ruling affirming a federal district court’s grant of summary judgment in a lawsuit stemming from a mortgage lender’s actions during a loan modification process and whether those actions were in violation of Pennsylvania’s unfair trade practices statute.

  • September 30, 2021

    City Failed To Show Proximate Causation In Discriminatory Lending Suit

    SAN FRANCISCO — An en banc Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sept. 28 affirmed in part and reversed in part a federal district court’s partial denial of a motion to dismiss filed by Wells Fargo and Co. and Wells Fargo Bank NA (collectively, Wells Fargo) in a discriminatory lending lawsuit, ruling that the city of Oakland, Calif. failed to sufficiently establish proximate causation in arguing that Wells Fargo’s alleged discriminatory lending practices caused property values and tax revenues to drop while causing municipal expenditures to rise.

  • September 24, 2021

    9th Circuit Panel Affirms Dismissal Of Time-Barred TILA Rescission Claim

    SAN FRANCISCO — Without providing further detail in a two-page memorandum opinion, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Sept. 22 affirmed a federal district court’s dismissal of borrowers’ Truth In Lending Act (TILA) rescission claim against their loan servicer and others for failure to bring the claim within the applicable statute of limitations.

  • September 24, 2021

    Borrower Sufficiently Pleaded Injury-In-Fact In FCRA Suit, Panel Rules

    CINCINNATI — A federal district court erred in ruling that a borrower lacked standing to bring its claim for negligence under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) against his mortgage loan servicer based on its continued reporting of a discharged mortgage to credit reporting agencies (CRAs) because the borrower sufficiently alleged an injury-in-fact that was “fairly traceable” to the loan servicer’s actions, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled Sept. 13 in reversing and remanding.

  • September 23, 2021

    Home Equity Lender, Others Sued Over Predatory Lending Scheme

    SHERMAN, Texas — A home equity lender, its parent company and a specialized mortgage lender engaged in a predatory lending scheme to defraud a borrower seeking to obtain a home equity loan after losing his job by selling the borrower a sale-leaseback loan without providing him with the necessary disclosures or conducting the necessary due diligence to ensure that the borrower could repay the loan, the borrower alleges in a Sept. 20 complaint filed in Texas federal court.

  • September 23, 2021

    Borrower Sues Lender Over Alleged Discriminatory Lending Practices

    PHILADELPHIA — An African-American borrower sued his commercial mortgage lender in Pennsylvania federal court on Sept. 21, alleging that the lender engaged in discriminatory lending practices by failing to notify the borrower that his commercial mortgage loan included a maturity date, which resulted in unnecessary legal fees and a refinance of the loan, something the borrower argues the lender does not do to white borrowers.

  • September 22, 2021

    Rosenthal Act Claim Against Loan Servicer To Proceed After Dismissal Bid

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal magistrate judge in California on Sept. 20 allowed a claim for violation of the Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act against a mortgage loan servicer to proceed in a foreclosure dispute, ruling that borrowers have sufficiently shown that the servicer engaged in debt collection in violation of the statute.

  • September 21, 2021

    Judge: CRAs’ Investigation Of Mortgage Debt Dispute Not An FCRA Violation

    DALLAS — A federal judge in Texas on Sept. 17 dismissed a borrower’s claims under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) against a credit reporting agency (CRA) stemming from its handling of the borrower’s dispute of a delinquent mortgage entry on his credit report, ruling that the borrower has failed to sufficiently show that the CRA’s actions in handling the dispute violated any provision of the FCRA.

  • September 21, 2021

    Refinance Lender’s Subrogation Lien Claim Barred By Statute Of Limitations

    DALLAS — A subrogation lien claim brought by a refinance lender is barred by the applicable four-year statute of limitations, and thus, a Texas trial court did not err in issuing a judgment finding that any lien or power of sale held by the refinance lender on the subject property is void and unenforceable, a Texas Court of Appeals, Fifth District panel ruled Sept. 17 in affirming.

  • September 16, 2021

    Trial Period Plan Not A Loan Modification Agreement, Judge Rules

    PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A federal judge in Rhode Island on Sept. 15 ruled that a mortgage lender did not breach the terms of a mortgage loan agreement by entering into a loan modification agreement with a borrower who fell behind on his loan payments because the lender had agreed only to a trial period plan (TPP) with the borrower before determining that the borrower did not qualify for loan modification.

  • September 16, 2021

    Filed-Rate Doctrine Applies To Intermediaries, Washington High Court Rules

    OLYMPIA, Wash. — The filed-rate doctrine applies not only to insurers but also to intermediaries, such as mortgage loan brokers and servicers who participate “in the procurement of the policy from insurers,” the Washington Supreme Court ruled Sept. 2 in answering a question in a force-placed insurance dispute certified to it by the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • September 14, 2021

    Filed-Rate Doctrine Applies To Intermediaries, Washington High Court Rules

    OLYMPIA, Wash. — The filed-rate doctrine applies not only to insurers but also to intermediaries, such as mortgage loan brokers and servicers who participate “in the procurement of the policy from insurers,” the Washington Supreme Court ruled Sept. 2 in answering a question in a force-placed insurance dispute certified to it by the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • September 07, 2021

    Borrower Seeks Utah High Court Guidance In Convenience Fee Suit

    SALT LAKE CITY — A borrower asked a federal judge in Utah on Sept. 3 to certify two questions to the state’s highest court seeking a determination as to whether her state consumer sales practices law claim against her mortgage servicer for its charging of pay-to-pay convenience fees for making her mortgage payments is preempted by Utah’s Mortgage Lending and Servicing Act (MLSA).

  • September 02, 2021

    Claims In RESPA Suit Over Loan Modification Notification Error Dismissed

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California on Aug. 23 dismissed a borrower’s state and federal law claims against his mortgage lender and loan servicer stemming from their alleged failure to provide him with the required notice of certain loss mitigation options they would offer him in an effort to stave off a foreclosure sale on his property, ruling that the defendants complied with the notification provisions of the Real Estate Settlement Procedure Act (RESPA) as required.