Tag Archives: Ocwen

In a letter released earlier this week, Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of financial services for New York, said an investigation of Ocwen's mortgage servicing practices turned up more than 7,000 letters sent to borrowers that had been backdated and sent only after their payment deadlines had passed.

A group of state bank regulators is forming a task force to develop new mortgage servicing standards for non-bank firms, according to an announcement released Wednesday.

A Pennsylvania law firm announced Wednesday it has filed a class action lawsuit against Ocwen, claiming the company misled shareholders about its practices and earnings. In a complaint filed with the U.S. District Court for Southern Florida, the Law Offices of Howard G. Smith, a firm focused on representing investors, accused the Atlanta-based mortgage company of failing to disclose to its shareholders that its servicing practices "violated applicable regulations and laws" and that its executives were involved in funneling millions of dollars in fees through Altisource Portfolio Solutions, a related company.

Ocwen, the nation's fourth largest mortgage servicer, has agreed to pay $3.7 million to resolve allegations that it failed to give notice to homeowners, and that the company unlawfully foreclosed on properties in Massachusetts. The announcement came from the state's Attorney General Martha Coakley, who alleged the non-bank servicer failed to follow Massachusetts law when handling certain mortgage loans.

In a report originally in Reuters, Ocwen will stop requiring gag orders, which disallowed some homeowners from criticizing the company publicly in exchange for having their loan terms modified, according to New York State's Superintendent of Financial Services Benjamin Lawsky.

A curious piece of text is appearing in some homeowner's loan modification agreements—by accepting a modification from a bank or non-bank servicer, the homeowner agrees to never publicly say, write, or post anything negative about the company doing the modification. Originally in a report from Reuters, Ocwen, Bank of America, and PNC Financial Services Group are adding new terms to their modification contracts to prevent homeowners from publicly disparaging the companies.

Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky of New York's Department of Financial Services said the agency plans to dig into fee-based ancillary services at non-banks such as Ocwen andNationstar. While Lawsky said there's "nothing inherently wrong" with companies and affiliates providing ancillary services—ranging from debt collection to loan sales—he asserted that a lack of regulatory oversight up to this point has resulted in "potentially conflicted arrangements" between servicers and their affiliates.

More than two years after the announcement of an historic settlement between 49 state attorneys general and some of the country's largest servicers, most are living up to compliance standards, a new report shows. According to examination results released by the Office of Mortgage Settlement Oversight, five of the six banks met or exceeded expectations across 29 different compliance metrics in the third and fourth quarters of 2013.

In a letter sent Monday to Ocwen Financial Corporation's General Counsel Timothy Hayes, New York State Department of Financial Service’s (NYSDFS) superintendent Benjamin Lawsky questioned the financial giant on business dealings related to a relationship between Ocwen and Altisource Portfolio Solutions.

In a press release issued by Fitch Ratings, the company comments that the past year has seen a "sea change" in who is servicing severely delinquent U.S. mortgage loans—and how they are being serviced. Fitch found that 2013 saw many portfolios of non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) mortgage servicing rights (MSR) move from banks to non-bank servicers.