Reprinted from The Legal Description
(www.TheLegalDescription.com)
Issue Date: August 29, 2005, Posted On: 8/29/2005
“There are a certain number of people who are chronic violators. What I would like to suggest is rather than burden the industry with new rules, let’s identify violators and go after them like a junkyard dog. The rest of us are trying to be decent, ethical guys.”
Bernard R. "Robin" Baker of Premier Title Company
Seven weeks into its latest reform efforts, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is hearing consensus on at least one issue -- revising the Good Faith Estimate (GFE) -- but faces a contentious and sometimes angry industry over packaging, YSPs and the safe harbor provisions.
But HUD has not backed down during the seven weeks in insisting that reform is necessary. That point was challenged at the Aug. 14 roundtable in Fort Worth, Texas, when Marc Savitt of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers asked, “Is doing nothing an option?”
HUD’s Gary Cunningham was quick to respond. “We are pretty committed to at least doing a proposed rule to address the issues…consumers do not like to be surprised with greater-than-anticipated closing costs.”
Cunningham also squelched rumors that a rule was already written, and emphasized that the roundtables themselves were a serious effort to gain a better understanding of the issues and to seek consensus where possible.
“No rule has been written, and there is no secret drawer with a rule already drafted,” Cunningham insisted.
While the idea of a “secret drawer” then became a humorous, if minor, motif of the remaining roundtables, HUD spokesperson Brian Sullivan was equally eager to lend his voice in legitimizing the process. “At the risk of repeating myself, there is no rule, there is no rule, there is no rule,” Sullivan told The Legal Description. “You either believe in this process or you don’t. We are really listening. People are truly making an impression on us. You have to believe the Secretary when he says before we put pen to paper we want input.”
HUD will have plenty of fodder to work with following the 28 hours of testimony they have heard during the seven roundtables, and the common ground they have found there seems to lie largely with the GFE issue.
To view the complete article, click here. |
