Home >> Daily Dose >> The Challenges that Face the Foreclosure Landscape
Print This Post Print This Post

The Challenges that Face the Foreclosure Landscape

By Kendall Baer

Foreclosure professionals from across the mortgage industry attended the 2016 Five Star Conference’s Foreclosure Lab Monday morning to discuss the everyday challenges and examination from regulatory agencies, servicers, and investors.

The lab began with a welcome and introduction from Steve McCaffrey, President and Founder of MetroCorp Claims and the director of the lab. The first discussion was led by David Greene, Associate General Counsel for Fannie Mae, about foreclosure of e-Notes, including recent court decisions approving foreclosures of e-Notes. The discussion touched on recent legislation pushing foreclosure sales onto online auction platforms and also touched on proposed federal legislation to create a national note repository that will eliminate paper notes and simplify enforcement processes.

Courtney Thompson, First VP Default Servicing Oversight for Flagstar Bank, then spoke to the group about the latest regulations and compliance expectations for vendors as well as steps that can be taken to make sure businesses are more attractive to servicers. Being a servicer herself, Thompson discussed OCC 2013-29, CFPB 2012-03 & UDAAP, due diligence, policies, procedures, controls, and training.

A panel moderated by Neil Sherman, Managing Partner of Schneiderman and Sherman, to discuss the constantly changing regulatory environment as well as how servicers must regularly assess their compliance position in order to adapt their operations to comply with regulatory changes. Sherman was joined with panelists including Dawn Adams, VP Default Services for Roundpoint Mortgage Servicing Corporation; Mark Gugino, SVP, Foreclosure and Document Execution for Wells Fargo Bank; Carolyn Taylor, Partner for Hughes Watters Askanase L.L.P.; and Lawrence Zielke, Managing Partner for Shapiro & Zielke.

Puneet K. Singh, Managing Partner, Law Offices of Kimball, Tirey & St. John, spoke on how to terminate the tenancy of a former borrower vs. tenant, including notice to terminate tenancy, cash for keys agreements, and eviction process. Singh went into depth about how, in general, most states require some type of eviction process and she focused on the stricter states which require longer time periods, relocation payments, etc. She also discussed the cash for keys process and general timelines and costs for evictions across different states and how to use that information to leverage the best cash-for keys deal.

Sharmila Bharwani, Assistant General Counsel for Citigroup, Inc., then took the stage to share with the audience about the topic of examination of proposed bankruptcy rules, CFPB periodic statements, unsecured POCs, and statute of limitations. William Glasgow, Jr., SVP Head of Mortgage Servicing for HSBC then lead a panel on managing aged inventory and strategies to reduce risk together with Rob Cooper, Managing Director for Assurant Field Services; Jay Jones, Partner for Phelan Hallinan Diamond & Jones; Keller Mackie, President for Mackie Wolf Zientz & Mann; and Wanda Montgomery, SVP Foreclosure for Fay Servicing. To wrap up the session, CFPB Senior Counsel for Office of Regulations’ Laura Johnson discussed CFPB’s foreclosure-related aspects of the new mortgage servicing final rule.

Editor's Note: The Five Star Institute is the parent company of MReport and TheMReport.com. 

About Author: Seth Welborn

Seth Welborn is a Harding University graduate with a degree in English and a minor in writing. He is a contributing writer for MReport. An East Texas Native, he has studied abroad in Athens, Greece and works part-time as a photographer.
x

Check Also

Survey: Homeownership Remains Elusive for Baby Boomer Renters

A recent look into housing affordability by NeighborWorks America has found that three in five long-term baby boomer renters feel homeownership remains unattainable.