ARIZONA ASSOCIATION OF MORTGAGE BROKERS
Federal Update
NAMB has
sent out legislative alerts over the past couple of weeks with regards to H.R.
3126 (Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009). Since Arizona does not have a
member on the House Financial Services Committee we really could not
participate in the call to action like other states. We have been
monitoring the items and I wanted to give everyone an update and clarification
to what is occurring.
H.R. 3126
is basically a bill that is attempting to merge several government agencies
into on one huge bureaucratic department. Through this, they have been
jockeying for power with regards to financial reform. So this bill
encompasses numerous topics that are not all related to mortgages. When
the committee agreed to hear the bill, there was a push by NAMB to draft
amendments that would address other pending items while trying to remain as
innocuous as possible. The effort produced 3 amendments that addressed
the following;
Amendment 1 - nullifying the HVCC, not just an 18 month moratorium but killing it altogether. This was sponsored by Miller and Childers who have been a huge help to small business and the mortgage community.
Amendment 2 – delay the HUD rule until the FED, HUD and industry could work out the conflicts between the two rules. This was sponsored by Biggert.
Amendment 3 - prevent CFPA from capping compensation to any person, ensure fair dealings with consumers and ensures no disparate treatment among industry participants whether they are federally chartered, big or small. This was also a Miller sponsored amendment.
The results
of NAMB’s efforts were victorious on two fronts. The first amendment
nullifying HVCC was approved by the committee. This will work on the
premise that loan officers licensed under the SAFE Act would be able to order
the appraisals directly and there is a large push to have the appraisers
registered on the NLMS system too. This will ensure tracking and
regulation of the intended rule.
The second
amendment mentioned above was not allowed in its entirety. There was much
deliberation on the exact dates of postponement and this overshadowed the real
intent of the amendment. It did however result in the allowance of
lenders/brokers using either GFE until July 1, 2010. This solves a more
critical issue that was more of an underlying factor than the FED and HUD rules
conflicting. The unspoken possibility was the large lenders would stop lending
until they could finish their beta testing on the new forms. This could
have shut down the industry in January until a compromise could have been
achieved.
The third amendment is still a possibility but will have to come from changes made along the way.
Finally
H.R. 3126 will ultimately merge with several other regulatory reform bills such
as H.R. 1728 (Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2009).
The companion legislation has not been introduced into the Senate
although it is expected in the coming weeks. There will be
several state of the industry announcements and forums in the coming weeks.
Stay tuned to those as the situation is extremely fluid and can change in
the blink of an eye.
Arizona Update
The
legislature will be called into special session later this month or sometime in
November. The budget must be dealt with and DFI still has no money to
implement the SAFE Act registration process. For those of you who
attended AAMB’s Mortgage Marketplace Conference, you heard that DFI has five people to process
the anticipated 5,000 applications for SAFE. The budget passage would
potentially add another 5-7 people to process the applications. Since
this is still a huge unknown, AAMB encourages everyone to take their classes
and take the test as soon as possible. DFI has 120 days to process the
paperwork and they will probable use every part of it.
I realize
this is a long update but I thought everyone needed to know what the results of
the amendments mean to us and what the association has done to insure the
longevity of our industry.
Jody Davis
Government
Affairs
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