Headlines

A U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge ruled on Wednesday that lawsuits brought about by Wall Street investors in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can continue, according to media reports.

Three attorneys from North Carolina-based default services firm Hutchens Law Firm were recently recognized for their work, according to announcements from the firm.

Black Knight Financial Services named a new addition to its Data and Analytics division: Chip McAvoy has joined the team as VP of emerging products and technology.

More than 18,000 homeowners in North Carolina have saved their homes as a result of a statewide foreclosure prevention effort, according to a release from the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency (NCHFA).

December's index, which saw about 215,000 new loans added to the pool of risk-rated mortgages, was up 0.4 percentage points from the average for the prior three months and 1.1 percentage points from a year earlier, AEI said. As ever, the largest portion of risk came from the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which had a risk index of 24.33 percent, up 0.2 percentage points from the prior three-month average. Following that were the Veterans Affairs index, which was at 11.5 percent, and the Fannie/Freddie index, which was 6.2 percent, just above the 6 percent threshold AEI says is "indicative of conditions conducive to a stable market."

Real estate default services law firm Wilson & Associates, which has two offices in Arkansas and three in Tennessee, has named three new shareholders and hired a new chief financial officer and chief operating officer, according to an announcement from managing partner/shareholder Jennifer Wilson-Harvey.

After more than a quarter of a century spent working for Freddie Mac, Dr. Frank Nothaft has moved on to serve as SVP and chief economist at CoreLogic, the property information firm announced.

Atlanta-based mortgage servicer Ocwen Financial has responded to a Notice of Nonperformance filed on Friday by law firm Gibbs & Bruns on behalf of investors BNY Mellon, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, US Bank, and Wells Fargo. Monday, Ocwen attorney Richard A. Jacobsen responded to the allegations with the following statement: "Ocwen continues to be committed to meeting all of its servicing obligations in accordance with its contractual arrangements in the over 2,500 Trusts that it services, and in full cooperation and compliance with its industry regulators. Your clients, on the other hand, are asking Ocwen to turn its back on the Trusts as a whole, on the borrowers, and on public policy. Ocwen declines to do so and reserves all its rights and remedies."

A group of mortgage bond investors has sent Ocwen Financial Corp. a notice of non-performance in what could be the precursor toward a future lawsuit.

Titan Capital Solutions (TCS), a wholly owned correspondent investment subsidiary of Denver-based Titan Lenders Corp., has recently begun to purchase certain investor-rejected loans, the company announced Thursday.