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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed an additional set of measures designed to expand foreclosure protections for mortgage borrowers. In an announcement Thursday afternoon, CFPB detailed the latest additions to its mortgage servicing rules, which first went into effect earlier this year. Since that time, the bureau says it has continued to engage in outreach with consumer advocacy groups, industry representatives, and other stakeholders to develop additional provisions to protect consumers and make it easier for companies to comply with the rules.
Chief among the proposed rules would be a requirement that servicers must provide additional foreclosure protections to borrowers who have already worked through the loss mitigation process previously and recovered. Under the current rules, servicers are already required to provide certain protections, including the right to be evaluated under CFPB requirements for foreclosure avoidance options, once during the life of the mortgage.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced earlier this week that it has issued $24.7 billion in fines and penalties from various organizations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2014, which was more than three times the $8 billion that the Department collected for FY 2013. Much of the money collected was a result of enforcement actions by the Department upon financial institutions for their handling of residential mortgage-backed securities.
