Mortgage Law

The Consumer Financial Services Committee caters to lawyers that practice in the area of consumer financial services law. Committee membership represents both industry interests and consumers, and hails from private practice, government, the non-profit sector, and educational institutions. The Committee focuses on new developments in consumer financial services law relating to residential mortgage and personal property finance; truth in lending; financial privacy, credit reporting, information security and identity theft; federal preemption of state and local laws; electronic delivery of consumer financial services; stored value and credit cards; credit discrimination and access to financial services; litigation and arbitration; and debt collection and consumer bankruptcy.

Discrimination in mortgage lending is prohibited by the federal Fair Housing Act and HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity actively enforces those provisions of the law. The Fair Housing Act makes it unlawful to engage in the following practices based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status or handicap (disability) * Refuse to make a mortgage loan * Refuse to provide information regarding loans * Impose different terms or conditions on a loan, such as different interest rates, points, or fees * Discriminate in appraising property * Refuse to purchase a loan or set different terms or conditions for purchasing a loan.

Welcome to the FHA Mortgage Limits page. This page allows you to look up the FHA mortgage limits for your area or several areas, and then list them by state, county, or Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The DEC focuses on assuring the highest standards of ethics, management and accountability in the resolution of HUD's troubled properties. The DEC's primary goal is to bring owners to full compliance so that there is no compromise in the quality of America's housing. To a large extent, owners have agreed to work with HUD to prevent possible enforcement action. Such a proactive stance on the part of owners is in the best interest of all parties, especially for residents.

HUD’s mission is to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all. HUD is working to strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy and protect consumers; meet the need for quality affordable rental homes: utilize housing as a platform for improving quality of life; build inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination; and transform the way HUD does business.

HUD sponsors housing counseling agencies throughout the country that can provide advice on buying a home, renting, defaults, foreclosures, and credit issues. This page allows you to select a list of agencies for each state below. You may search more specifically for a reverse mortgage counselor or if you are facing foreclosure, search for a foreclosure avoidance counselor.

This may be the largest and most important loan you get during your lifetime. You should be aware of certain rights before you enter into any loan agreement.

When homeowners or borrowers suspect they may be a victim of a Con-Artist’s work, they have many legal resources available to help them. Potential victims need to report mortgage fraud, mortgage scams, or predatory lending practices as soon as there is an indication these might exist. Waiting to make sure can be costly. Both on the national level and on the state level, government and private organizations are available to answer questions and provide help.

A mortgage is a security interest in real property held by a lender as a security for a debt, usually a loan of money. While a mortgage in itself is not a debt, it is the lender's security for a debt. It is a transfer of an interest in land (or the equivalent) from the owner to the mortgage lender, on the condition that this interest will be returned to the owner when the terms of the mortgage have been satisfied or performed. In other words, the mortgage is a security for the loan that the lender makes to the borrower.

A mortgage involves the transfer of an interest in land as security for a loan or other obligation. It is the most common method of financing real estate transactions. The mortgagor is the party transferring the interest in land. The mortgagee, usually a financial institution, is the provider of the loan or other interest given in exchange for the security interest. Normally, a mortgage is paid in installments that include both interest and a payment on the principle amount that was borrowed. Failure to make payments results in the foreclosure of the mortgage.

Negotiable instruments are mainly governed by state statutory law. Every state has adopted Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), with some modifications, as the law governing negotiable instruments. The UCC defines a negotiable instrument as an unconditioned writing that promises or orders the payment of a fixed amount of money.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) charters, regulates, and supervises all national banks. It also supervises the federal branches and agencies of foreign banks. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the OCC has four district offices plus an office in London to supervise the international activities of national banks.

The OTS supervises a national thrift industry that is built on the bedrock of the American dream of homeownership—supplying affordable home financing for Americans from all walks of life.

Over the last several years, our nation has made enormous progress in expanding access to capital for previously under served borrowers. Despite this progress, however, too many families are suffering today because of a growing incidence of abusive practices in a segment of the mortgage lending market. Predatory mortgage lending practices strip borrowers of home equity and threaten families with foreclosure, destabilizing the very communities that are beginning to enjoy the fruits of our nation’s economic success.

HUD is requiring that loan originators provide borrowers with a standard Good Faith Estimate that clearly discloses key loan terms and closing costs and that closing agents provide borrowers with a new HUD-1 settlement statement. New RESPA regulations were published November 17, 2008 and are scheduled to take full effect on January 1, 2010. The "New RESPA Rule FAQs" were comprised from industry questions and are posted to facilitate implementation of these new requirements.

A security interest arises when in exchange for a loan a borrower agrees, in a security agreement, that the lender (the secured party) may take specified collateral owned by the borrower if he or she should default on the loan. A security interest also provides the secured party with the assurance that if the debtor should go bankrupt he or she may be able to recover the value of the loan by taking possession of the specified collateral instead of receiving only a portion of the borrowers property after it is divided among all creditors.

Americans for Fairness in Lending (AFFIL) and Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) are partnering to reform the nation’s lending industry and financial system to protect Americans’ neighborhoods, homes and pocketbooks.

* Company Profile o Our Mission o Our Leadership o Our Business o Our Role State-by-State o FAQs o Contact Us * News and Information Center * Corporate Citizenship * Investor Relations * Careers Company Profile Every day we help millions of families in neighborhoods across America buy their own homes or enjoy quality and affordable rental housing by linking them to the world's capital markets. In the process we reduce the costs of housing finance and expand housing opportunities for all families, including low-income and minority families. It is a unique mortgage finance system that makes homeownership a reality for more of America's families.

Fannie Mae operates in the U.S. secondary mortgage market. Rather than making home loans directly to consumers, we work with mortgage bankers, brokers and other primary mortgage market partners to help ensure they have funds to lend to home buyers at affordable rates. We fund our mortgage investments primarily by issuing debt securities in the domestic and international capital markets.

At Ginnie Mae, we help make affordable housing a reality for millions of low- and moderate-income households across America by channeling global capital into the nation's housing markets. Specifically, the Ginnie Mae guaranty allows mortgage lenders to obtain a better price for their mortgage loans in the secondary market. The lenders can then use the proceeds to make new mortgage loans available.

In February 2009, the Obama Administration introduced a comprehensive Financial Stability Plan to address the key problems at the heart of the current crisis to get our economy back on track. A critical piece of that effort is Making Home Affordable, a plan to stabilize the housing market and help struggling homeowners get relief and avoid foreclosure.

The National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC), founded in 1951, is the nation's largest and longest serving national nonprofit credit counseling organization. The NFCC's mission is to promote the national agenda for financially responsible behavior and build capacity for its members to deliver the highest quality financial education and counseling services. NFCC members annually help more than two million consumers through nearly 1,000 community-based offices nationwide.

These companies do not loan money. They operate in the lending industry after-the-fact. They take on a function that a lender doesn’t want - the backroom functions of handling payments, escrow accounts, annual statements, dealing with borrowers, collections, etc. The perpetrators of the loan servicing scam acquire the servicing rights to loans that other companies have already made. (Loans that were deliberately constructed by predatory lenders are ideal for processing through servicers that specialize in aggressive collections or rapid foreclosure processing, but the loan servicing scam can be operated against any mortgage loan if the servicer acquires the rights from the lender.)

Consumer credit can be complicated. From the unusual legal terms to the complex mathematical formulas, understanding how credit works can be a big task. The Committee on Consumer Financial Services of the Business Law Section of the American Bar Association has created this website to provide you with the tools to help you on your way to financial success.

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Handbook portal contains the Single Family Housing handbooks in Information Mapping format as well as links to Mortgagee Letters and other resources on the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) website. The online 4155.1 and 4155.2 Handbooks incorporate and consolidate guidance from Handbooks 4155.1 REV-5, 4000.2 REV-3, 4000.4 REV-1, 4165.1 REV-2 and related Mortgagee Letters.

National Mortgage News is a weekly newspaper covering the mortgage sector in the United States.

Articles written by attorneys and experts worldwide discussing legal aspects related to Debtor and Creditor including: bankruptcy, collections, credit and mortgage, debt recovery and insolvency.