Comment on Federal Regulations on Servicing of Mortgage Loans

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is asking for your help in reviewing proposals at Regulation Room and reacting to them concerning regulating the mortgage industry. Click here to help make a difference in how mortgages are serviced into the future.

Regulation Room is a place where people talk to people talking to government. Each issue has its own summary for reading, discussing and commenting to the agencies that make the regulations.

Don't complain about the future of your industry, shape it.

Be careful when adding your spouse to a deed in only your name

Gifting your spouse a half interest in your separate real estate creates a presumption that the property is marital and subject to equitable distribution, so says the Third Judicial Department in Campfield v. Campfield, which can be read by clicking here. 

More strikingly is the fact that the Court refused to Order a credit to the original owner spouse for the value of her contribution of separate property to the acquisition of a marital asset. This is the traditional approach that most matrimonial attorneys are familiar with.

The Third Department distinguished the scenario of inheriting money and purchasing marital property where a credit would be given from the situation before it when a party already owned property and than added a spouse's name to the property. 

The Third Department controls from the Canadian border in the north to the lower Catskills in the south and from the Vermont and Massachusetts borders in the east to the Finger Lakes in the west.  The Third Department includes just over half of New York's land area and contains about one seventh of the State's population.

Making Home Affordable - New Handbook Available - Version 4.0

To access the new Handbook for MHA, inclusive of HAMP and HAFA, click here. While reviewing the Handbook you should be aware of the case of Flagstar Bank v. Walker wherein the Court held that the statutory good faith standard for a CPLR 3408 Foreclosure Settlement Conference is compliance with the Handbook. To review the case, click here.

This Handbook is the rules for banks / servicers to modify mortgages, so pay careful attention to detail and make sure that they comply.