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Sherwin Root

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Sherwin Root is an attorney in the Corporate Practice Group in the firm's Los Angeles office.

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On August 13, the CFPB announced an advisory opinion on the applicability of the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and Regulation Z to “contracts for deed.” A contract for deed is an arrangement in which a consumer purchases a home from a seller subject to the purchaser paying for the home over time. The purchaser moves into the home and assumes responsibility for taxes, insurance, home maintenance and repairs, but does not take title to the home until all payments due are made to the seller. The arrangement is also known by other names, such as “land sales contract,” “land installment contract,” and “agreement for deed.” The arrangement is very similar in many respects to an installment sales contract for the purchase of goods. Continue Reading CFPB Announces Advisory Opinion on Applicability of TILA and Regulation Z To Contracts for Deed

On July 18, the CFPB proposed a new interpretive rule that would characterize earned wage access (“EWA”) products as extensions of credit and subject to the Truth in Lending Act and Regulation Z. Under the interpretive guidance, both the “tipping” function on EWA products, and the “expedited funds delivery fee” would be treated as finance charges, and would require the creditor to make the disclosures required for unsecured extensions of credit under Regulation Z. However, an employer-sponsored program which is provided at no cost to the employee (i.e., without what the CFPB has deemed a “finance charge”) would not require such disclosures.Continue Reading CFPB Proposes Interpretive Rule Characterizing Earned Wage Access Products as Loans

On April 26, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued Mortgagee Letter 2024-06, announcing changes to the Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECMs) for purchases (H4P loans), a mortgage program designed for older homeowners who wish to buy a primary residence using a reverse mortgage. The program allowed seniors to purchase a new home that better suits their needs without the burden of monthly mortgage payments.Continue Reading HUD Updates Home Equity Conversion Rules for Purchases

In an April 16 unpublished opinion, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel’s earlier decision finding that a mortgage lender not licensed in California violated the state’s usury law when it extended the term of the loan and lowered the borrower’s interest rate on a broker-arranged mortgage loan that it owned. Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Holds Loan Modification Made By Unlicensed Lender Violates State Usury Law

On January 11, 2024, an administrative law judge for the NLRB issued an opinion holding that the employment agreement used by a major mortgage lender for all of its approximately 6,000 employees violates the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The mortgage lender’s standard employment contract included provisions that: 1) restricted disclosure of confidential information; 2) governed the use and return of company property, information, and communications; and 3) required that certain disputes be resolved through arbitration. Many of these provisions are common in employment agreements between lenders and their employees. Nevertheless, the ALJ found that parts of these provisions violated the NLRA because they had a reasonable tendency to interfere with, restrain, or coerce an employee contemplating engaging in activity protected by the statute.Continue Reading NLRB Finds Common Provisions in Mortgage Lender Employment Contract Illegal

On December 4, Judge R. Gary Klausner of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California granted summary judgment to California’s DFPI upholding the recently adopted commercial financing disclosure regulations related to the implementation of SB 1235 (we blogged about the rule here).  The regulations require small business financing providers to disclose key metrics to small businesses to help them understand potential financing options, including the amount of funding provided, APR, finance charge, and payment amounts. The plaintiffs in this latest challenge – a trade association of small business finance companies – asserted that the disclosure requirements violated plaintiffs’ free speech rights under the First Amendment and that the disclosures were preempted by the Truth in Lending Act (TILA).Continue Reading Federal Judge Upholds California’s Small-business Lending Disclosures

On September 27, the CFPB released its annual report on residential mortgage lending activity and trends for 2022. Under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), the CFPB requires financial institutions to collect and provide loan-level information on mortgage loan applications and originations. Not surprisingly given the dramatic rise in interest rates last year, the report found that overall affordability is declining, that borrowers spent more of their income on mortgage payments, that loan fees increased dramatically due primarily to many borrowers electing to buy down their interest rate by paying discount points, and that lenders more often denied applications for insufficient income.Continue Reading CFPB 2022 Loan Data: Decrease in Originations; Increase Loan Payments, Fees

Ten years after the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) first promulgated its disparate impact rule (the Rule), on September 19, the US District Court for the District of Columbia granted HUD’s motion for summary judgment upholding the Rule. Continue Reading US District Court Grants HUD’s Summary Judgment Motion in Disparate Impact Case

Many residential mortgage lenders currently have loan compensation plans that provide for a payment to loan originators of one commission amount for loans funded by the lender, and a smaller commission amount for loans that are brokered out to other lenders. While the CFPB never directly endorsed this result, they did not reject it either. In its Loan Originator Compensation Rule Resource Guide, the Mortgage Bankers Association provided the following illustration and comment when discussing the Loan Originator Compensation Rule’s prohibition against compensation based on a proxy for a term of a transaction:Continue Reading CFPB Adjusts Long Time Position Relating to Loan Originator Compensation

On September 8, a Texas federal judge ruled that the CFPB exceeded its authority by adopting a sweeping anti-discrimination policy last year. The CFPB adopted the policy in March 2022, via an update to its exam manual, stating that discrimination in any financial product is an “unfair” practice that can trigger liability under the federal prohibition against “unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices” or UDAAPs (we discussed this policy in previous posts here and here). The CFPB offered examples of practices that may be unfair because they are discriminatory, including offering one set of products or services to a certain customer demographic and a greater set of products or services to another customer demographic, providing inferior terms to one customer demographic as compared to another customer demographic, and engaging in targeted marketing or advertising in a discriminatory manner. Continue Reading Texas Court Strikes Down CFPB UDAAP Policy