Clarity needed on new rules for real estate settlements

Mortgage lenders and real estate settlement companies will soon implement new forms for real estate transactions designed to ease confusion for consumers at the closing table. The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform Act directed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to propose these new disclosure forms that will completely change the homebuying process.

As CFPB Director Richard Cordray recently testified on Capitol Hill, real estate settlement companies and mortgage lenders request more clarity from the CFPB about how the bureau intends to enforce this new regulation as the industry works to comply with the many new requirements by Aug. 1.

For more than 30 years, federal law has required mortgage lenders to provide two different disclosure forms to consumers applying for a mortgage. The law also has generally required two different forms at or shortly before closing on the loan. The 1,888 pages of the new rule do not simply combine two sets of disclosures — it merges two federal regulations as well. 

Because of this massive change, the CFPB should immediately announce a five-month restrained enforcement period for our industry to adjust to the new business processes needed to comply with the regulations. This restrained enforcement period would not delay the implementation date but would rather provide reasonable relief to market participants who are committed to meeting the bureau’s requirements yet are still uncertain about how the details of the regulation will work in actual real estate transactions. 

As with any regulatory change, there will be issues that will only be discovered after the industry and consumers start using the new forms and regulations. Similar to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s policy with previous disclosure changes, a restrained enforcement period will help the industry and regulators better collaborate to identify consumer and industry pain points, make necessary changes to improve consumers’ homebuying experience and provide certainty to the market about how the bureau intends to enforce the new regulations after Aug. 1.

A restrained enforcement period would allow our members to address glitches and setbacks that are otherwise certain to disrupt the real estate closing process and negatively impact the consumer experience at the closing table come Aug. 1. 

From Michelle L. Korsmo, CEO, American Land Title Association, Washington, D.C.

Today’s grabby-grabby world is dominated by banking and money institutions pushing more poisoned loans for greater profits. We have a classic situation of economic colonization applied by the European Union against Greece. It is prepared to see a nation destroyed rather than compromise its austere but lucrative policies.

The Greek nation will survive because when 75 percent of the population supports its government, such a country will never fail. Getting out of the EU may well be a blessing rather than a curse, because the Greek people have now regained their dignity — a dignity squandered by bad governments all those years.

As for the EU, it is also the start of its own demise. The EU would probably regret its decision to turn its back on Greece and for choosing austerity instead of reasoning and compassion.

I have no doubt Greece will come out of this economic setback much stronger than before; it will succeed because citizens feel proud again and in control to determine their own destiny and no longer enslaved to EU debtaucracy.

From Andreas Chrysafis, Cyprus