Ranking Member of the House Committee on Financial Services Maxine Waters, D-Calif., introduced a new bill that would increase oversight for mortgage servicers who work with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Waters introduced H.R. 6102, the Homeowner Mortgage Servicing Fairness Act of 2018, on Monday. She explained she is fighting “to ensure hardworking Americans can remain in their homes.”
(Source: Alcynna)
The bill would increase oversight from the Federal Housing Finance Agency for all mortgage servicers who conduct business with Fannie and Freddie. This would cover about 60% of all mortgage loans.
“Mortgage servicers play a critical role in determining whether homeowners experiencing financial hardships will be forced out of their homes,” Waters said. “However, despite the lessons learned during the foreclosure crisis, we continue to uncover evidence of bad behavior by our nation’s mortgage servicers.”
“Borrowers can’t choose their servicer so it’s especially important that Congress provide strong protections to prevent servicers from taking advantage of borrowers and to protect borrowers from foreclosure,” she said. “This bill will implement common-sense reforms to ensure that servicers are giving borrowers every possible opportunity to avoid foreclosure.”
Some of the changes this bill would bring include increasing FHFA oversight of servicers who work with the GSEs, requiring documentation of servicer behavior and FHFA evaluation to be provided to borrowers and penalizing failures to meet the minimum standards established by the FHFA.
The legislation is supported by the National Consumer Law Center and the National Fair Housing Alliance.
This isn’t the first time Waters has sought foreclosure protection for homeowners this year. In April, she introduced a bill that would strengthen mortgage servicers requirements for Federal Housing Administration borrowers in an attempt to prevent foreclosures.
However, given the current administration’s push to roll back regulations, it is unlikely that anything will come of Water’s newly introduced bills.
