News Topic: CreditSlips

Why do financial reporters insist on reporting interest rates on complex consumer financial products as if they were meaningful in isolation? To wit, anotherwise good New York Times story ... Read full article

Story in the Detroit Free Press today here , and my commentary at Consumer Law & Policy here . ... Read full article

It’s old news that federal housing agencies need better ideas about what to do about the foreclosure crisis.  The new development is that they realize it and have issued a blunderbuss “RFI” (request for information) seeking ideas from anyone willing to ... Read full article

Rather than a post with a lot of (supposed) answers, today I have a post with a lot of questions. My goal is to start a discussion that I hope our insightful readership will take up in the comments. ... Read full article

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has launched the first project in its "Know Before You Owe" initiative with the release of proposed mortgage disclosures. While the CFPB did its homework in designing these forms, including getting ... Read full article

I've had a series of funny phone calls this week, in which the speaker expresses total shock that I answer the phone. While I am notorious for never answering my phone, the real cause of the callers' surprise is that the number where I answer is ... Read full article

A major issue arising in foreclosure defense cases is the homeowner's ability to challenge the foreclosing party's standing based on noncompliance with securitization documentation. Several courts have held that there is no standing to challenge ... Read full article

NY AG Eric Schneiderman came out with guns blazing in the proposed Countrywide investor settlement litigation.  It his filing intervening in the action  and suing Bank of New York Mellon for breach of fiduciary duty, persistent fraud, and violations of ... Read full article

Over at American Banker is the text of Elizabeth Warren's farewell e-mail to the staff of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. My favorite line: "An honest market will give companies that provide fair value to their customers a chance to ... Read full article

"[L]et us stress being a professor specializing in bankruptcy is not a power position, even at Harvard Law School." ... Read full article

In the inane and insane case the United States does skip a debt payment, please let us skip the comparisons to Greece. Greece is really out of money and probably should have bitten the D-bullet ( restructured, re-profiled, whatever ) some time ago. We are ... Read full article

Last week the Association of Private-Sector Colleges and Universities (aka the Career College Assn.) filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to block enforcement of the U.S. Dept. of Education’s “Gainful Employment” regulation, issued in ... Read full article

Every time I think I've seen it all in the foreclosure fraud space, something new comes along and amazes me. This time it's not the banks or their vendors, but an AG. David Dayen at FireDogLake has a disturbing story that the Florida AG fired ... Read full article

Isn't it about time for some good news on mortgage modifications? Here is some, in the form of a paper titled Who Receives a Mortgage Modification? Race and Income Differentials in Loan Workouts . The authors use data from the Home Mortgage ... Read full article

Yesterday the Fed announced a settlement with Wells Fargo of claims that its subprime unit had 1) deliberately steered prime borrowers into higher-cost subprime mortgage refinancings and 2) falsified income documents to put subprime borrowers into ... Read full article

There aren't a lot of details about the Gang of Six debt proposal, but apparently it includes cutting or eliminating the home mortgage interest deduction. There's a good case to be for eliminating the home mortgage interest deduction. But ... Read full article

The National Consumer Law Center has launched a useful new resource for the bankruptcy community called the Bankruptcy Mortgage Project.  See here.   Those likely to find it handy include judges, consumers, trustees, mortgage servicers, attorneys, and ... Read full article

They officially announced that with no-one showing up to the auction and with their stalking horse backing out (bucking them off?), they will acquiese to the "winning" bid of the liquidators.  Surely part of this sad fall -- sadder still for ... Read full article