Redlining Isn’t What it Used To Be
Discrimination and Bias in Residential Lending
Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast Episode: Foreclosing on “Zombie” Mortgages: What Lenders and Servicers Should Know
Life After Love Gone Wrong Podcast: Season 3, Episode 2 - Mortgage Mastery: Charting a Financial Course Post-Divorce
Law Brief®: Robert Wolf, Alexander Tiktin and Richard Schoenstein Discuss the Continuing Foreclosure/Eviction Moratorium
Bar Exam Toolbox Podcast Episode 146: Listen and Learn -- Mortgages and Priority
Credit Eco to Go Podcast - Not a Normal Mortgage Crisis: How the Mortgage Industry Weathered the Pandemic
Not a Normal Mortgage Crisis: How the Mortgage Industry Weathered the Pandemic
In The Cross-Hairs? Protecting Your Company Against Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Investigations and Investors' Mortgage Buyback Claims
Condo Adviser: What is 'FHA approved,' exactly?
Bill on Bankruptcy: Trustees Sleep Easy after High Court Ruling
Bill on Bankruptcy: Sigmund Freud, Marx Brothers, Bernie Madoff
Critical Mortgage Regulatory Updates by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for 2013 and 2014
Bill on Bankruptcy: Delaware to Continue Dominating Bankruptcy
What’s Next from the CFPB
Former Congressman Steve Bartlett Joins the LEVICK Team
In April 2024, the Alabama Supreme Court issued an opinion in Alavest, LLC v. Harris that significantly expands the application of Rule 19 of the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure to post-foreclosure proceedings when it held...more
In Montaquila v. Flagstar Bank, the Rhode Island Supreme Court rejected a borrower's attempt to expand the plain language of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) federal regulation requiring loan...more
March 8, 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released its special edition Supervisory Highlights report, which focuses on Junk Fees found in deposit accounts and multiple loan servicing markets, such as...more
Why Maryland Collectors of Consumer Debts Need to Be Concerned About Convenience Fees - A recent Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision may have sweeping implications across the consumer debt collection industry in...more
The CFPB has released the Summer 2021 edition of its Supervisory Highlights. The report, which contains 48 pages of supervisory observations, discusses the Bureau’s examinations in the areas of auto servicing, consumer...more
Is a Cap on Payday Loan Rates About Protecting the Poor or Eliminating a Service? "Industry representatives say the proposed cap would drive most, if not all, payday lenders out of business and leave their customers...more
Notwithstanding a pandemic-induced winnowing of legislative priorities this year, California has passed a handful of new bills to regulate discrete areas of the financial services industry, including student loan servicing,...more
A&B ABstract: In a number of recent decisions, district courts have split on the issue of whether a mortgage servicer violates the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) and related state debt collection statutes by...more
Two federal enterprises who purchase and securitize mortgages, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with three federal agencies who make, guarantee, and insure mortgage loans, the Department of Housing and Urban Development...more
On June 17, 2020, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed S8428/A10530 and S8243-C/A10351-B into law. Collectively, in relevant part, the legislation creates N.Y. Banking Law § 9-x, which relates to residential forbearances as a result...more
Under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, PL 116-136, enacted March 27, 2020, a federally backed mortgage loan was subject to a foreclosure moratorium from March 18, 2020, through May 17, 2020....more
With new guidance and model documents issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage industry is several steps closer to operating without LIBOR. The industry has been grappling with the eventual demise of LIBOR since...more
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) published two reports on September 25 identifying several weaknesses in the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) oversight of reverse mortgages made under the Home Equity...more
In a case of first impression, the Fifth Circuit held that a defendant is not required to plead as an affirmative defense under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act that it had complied with Section 1024.41 of the Code...more
The Sixth Circuit has issued another opinion regarding loan modifications, following its opinion two weeks ago in Segrist v. Bank of New York Mellon (2018 WL 3773785, August 9, 2018), on which I earlier wrote. Now, in...more
On February 7, 2018, Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal rejected multiple arguments routinely advanced by borrowers’ counsel in defense and delay of foreclosure litigation, reversed the trial court’s order dismissing...more
On December 11, 2017, Locke Lord obtained a dismissal with prejudice of a punitive class action. In Leones v. Rushmore Loan Management Services, LLC, No. 0:17-CV-61216-WPD (S.D. Fla. Dec. 11, 2017), the United States...more
On December 15, 2017, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of borrowers’ statutory claims against their loan servicer because the borrowers failed to give the servicer notice and the opportunity to take corrective action...more
On September 8, a federal judge in California ordered a national mortgage services company to pay a $7.9 million civil penalty based on false or misleading marketing statements it allegedly made to consumers about its...more
On January 24, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced a $65 million fine assessed against a default management...more
In Florida, courts routinely enforce jury trial waiver provisions found in loan agreements, which are generally valid and enforceable. This is true even with respect to fair debt actions. However, because there is generally a...more
Key Points - The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit recently held that district courts have the power to decertify a class even after a jury verdict in favor of the class...more
In the recent case of Daniels v. Select Portfolio Serving, Inc., the California Court of Appeal has held that a lender may be liable for the negligence and misrepresentations of the lender’s servicer, without any contractual...more
On December 3, 2015, the Eleventh Circuit issued an opinion that has carved a path for plaintiffs challenging their communications with loan servicers. The decision, Prescott v. Seterus, Inc., reversed a grant of summary...more
Last month, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California issued the latest in a string of decisions denying class certification in cases of alleged misconduct regarding residential mortgage loan...more