What is Happening at the Federal Agencies That is Relevant to the Residential Mortgage and Settlement Service Industries

We are releasing today on our podcast show a repurposed webinar that we produced on June 11, 2025 entitled “What is happening at the federal agencies that is relevant to the residential mortgage and settlement service industries.”

During this podcast, we will inform you about recent developments at federal agencies, including the CFPB, HUD/FHA, OCC, FDIC, FRB and USDA (collectively, the “Agencies”), as well as Congress, the White House, states and the courts. Some of the issues we consider are:

 

•     Changes in leadership and priorities at the CFPB, as well as efforts to significantly reduce the funding and staffing at the CFPB and related lawsuits.

•     House Republican criticism of various CFPB actions under former Director Chopra.

•     The rescission and revisiting of CFPB final rules, proposed rules and informal guidance, including the Nonbank Enforcement Order Registry final rule, Residential Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Financing final rule, Residential Mortgage Servicing proposed rule, and FCRA “Data Broker” proposed rule.

•     The termination of CFPB enforcement efforts and revisiting of CFPB redlining consent orders.

•     The rescission of Community Reinvestment Act rule amendments.

•     The White House directive for the federal government to eliminate the use of disparate-impact liability.

•     The status of the HUD disparate impact rule under the Fair Housing Act.

•     HUD’s reversal of various FHA policies adopted during the Biden Administration, including guidance regarding appraisal bias and reconsideration of value.

•     Trigger leads bills.

•     White House firings of independent agency board/commission members and efforts to exert control over independent agencies.

•     State efforts to fill the void left by the actions at the CFPB.

 

John Socknat, co-head of our Consumer Financial Services Group, moderated and participated in the presentation, along with the following other members of the Consumer Financial Services and Mortgage Banking Groups: Richard Andreano, Jr., John Culhane and Matthew Morr.