Log In


Reset Password
News Education Local News Nation & World New Mexico

Bill would ease lending rules

WASHINGTON – The House overwhelmingly adopted legislation to ease some mortgage lending requirements of the sweeping 2010 law reining in banks and Wall Street as the Republican majority continues its assault on the so-called Dodd-Frank law enacted after the financial crisis.

The House first voted 263-162 on a bill to ease some curbs on lending for mobile and modular homes. Lawmakers then voted 286-140 for a second measure that would ease restrictions aimed at making sure consumers can repay their loans, but that have had the effect of making it more difficult for some prospective borrowers to obtain credit.

The first vote fell short of the two-thirds that would be required to overcome a veto threat issued by President Barack Obama. The second measure garnered the two-thirds vote necessary to override a veto.

In threatening a veto, the White House had warned that the bills would permit borrowers to be “steered” into higher-cost loans.

Home mortgages were a flashpoint of the 2008 financial crisis that brought on the Great Recession. Ahead of the crisis, banks sold to investors bundles of risky high-interest mortgages. Millions of home borrowers ended up defaulting on the loans when the interest rates spiked and the housing market bubble burst in 2007. The value of the mortgage securities held by banks and other investors plummeted.

Republican lawmakers pushing the legislation say it would provide relief from regulatory overreach for low- and moderate-income Americans looking to buy a home.

“We have struggling constituents who want to own that first home, who want a break on their (mortgage) closing costs,” Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said at a news conference on Tuesday.

The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Maxine Waters of California, insisted that the legislation would roll back consumer protections “and leave many low-income and minority families exposed to the kinds of predatory practices that were commonly used in the run-up to the financial crisis.”

One of the bills would exclude some expenses, such as set-asides for future insurance payments, from figuring into the total points and fees for a mortgage as spelled out to borrowers. There is a legal requirement that points and fees not exceed 3 percent of the total loan amount, in order for mortgage lenders to be deemed as having made a reasonable loan with strong chances of being repaid.

The other bill would ease some restrictions on mortgage lending for mobile and modular homes, such as those designed to reduce conflicts of interests when sellers of the homes make the loans. In addition, the definition of high-cost mortgages for such homes would be narrowed.



Reader Comments