Commentary

Now that the Republicans will have a majority in both the House and the Senate and a Republican-led Senate Banking Committee in January, it has been widely speculated that GSE reform will be near the top of their to-do list. Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) will become the new chair of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee in January. He previously served as the committee chair from 2003 to 2007 and is a longtime proponent of reforming the conservatorship model.

Speaking at the 56th annual meeting of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) on Monday, U.S. Department of Treasury Deputy Secretary Sarah Bloom Raskin said she does not see the nation's growing problem of student loan debt leading to an economic meltdown – and student loan debt may not be affecting a borrower's ability to buy a home, depending on that borrower's financial situation.

The first bill, Senate Bill 2664, sponsored in the Senate by Sen. John Mulroe (D-Chicago) and Rep. Sam Yingling (D-Hainesville), is designed to prevent abuses by condominium associations by limiting the fees that can be applied to the buyer of a foreclosed property and to facilitate the sale of the property to the new buyer.

In order to qualify as an exempt employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act, an employer must show, among other factors, that the employee’s primary duty is “the performance of office or non-manual work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer or the employer’s customer.”

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency states explicitly in an October 2013 bulletin guidance for risk management that it "expects more comprehensive and rigorous oversight and management of third-party relationships that . . . could cause a bank to face significant risk if the third party fails to meet expectations."

Seeking to "gain greater insight into issues about access to credit," the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced the launch of a rulemaking process to change reporting requirements under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The new reporting requirements could have unintended consequences for both mortgage servicers, and legal teams who assess discriminatory lending practices.

Florida courts have been very aggressive in moving the foreclosure cases pending on their dockets, especially the aged cases. The Courts’ tool of choice to obtain file movement is the Case Management Conference (CMC). At the court-ordered CMC, the Court will hear and decide all pending motions and, if the case is at issue, set the case for a trial to be held within a 45 to 60 day timeframe.

A discussion of leadership has to include the question: What skills does a leader need to have in order to be effective? Leaders need to be able to manage change, and in order to manage change, leaders have to navigate a myriad of social relationships.

Happy New Year, and what a beginning to the year we have had. The country has, as many of you have experienced, dealt with record cold weather, snow, and ice. However, perhaps in many respects, first on our industry’s mind has been the implementation of the new CFPB servicing guidelines.

Are debtors getting another attempt to extend or impose the Automatic Stay in cases where there is no Automatic Stay in effect? Pursuant to 11 U.S.C. §362(c)(3), the automatic stay shall terminate on the 30th day after the filing of the later case of a single or joint case of the debtor that was pending within the preceding one-year period but was dismissed other than a Chapter 7 dismissal under Section 707(b).