Research

CRL and allies recommend that regulators include servicing standards when implementing financial reform. This letter also includes specific recommendations for defining a "qualified residential mortgage" that encourages sustainable home loans.

Detailed summary of provisions in Title XIV: "Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act" Subtitles A-C: Mortgage Originations Contents: Timeline Key Definitions & Concepts "Qualified mortgage" "Residential mortgage loan" "Mortgage originator" Origination standards – originators (Subtitle A) Duty of care Originator compensation (including yield spread premiums) Steering Origination standards – loans (Subtitle B) Ability to Repay Prepayment penalties Other minimum standards...

Payday lenders survive by keeping customers caught in long-term debt, and before 2007, members of the American military service were not off-limits. In fact, payday loan stores clustered around bases, promising quick cash to military families in need, who, when they borrowed from a payday lender more often than not ended up caught in debt at triple-digit interest. Congress acted...

This color-coded map of payday stores by household reveals a disturbing pattern. Southern states are among the most targeted for these high-cost, low-dollar loans.

The Center for Responsible Lender added its signature to a letter from national consumer organizations asking the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to adopt stricter overdraft guidelines. Practices that need to be addressed include enrolling customers in fee-based overdraft when they qualify for much lower-cost coverage, charging excessive fees in amount and frequency, re-ordering transactions to maximize...

Credit card offers have grown increasingly complicated since 2000, when Congress required issuers to start disclosing pricing information on credit card offers. But instead of providing clarity to consumers about the true cost of their credit cards, issuers responded to this mandate by adding a confusing array of numbers to their offers, new CRL research finds. Specifically, CRL's research finds...

As a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, the United States Senate asked the Department of Defense to conduct a study on the impact of predatory lending on their troops, and to report on their findings in 180 days. The Department of Defense (DoD) report, "Report on Predatory Lending Practices Directed at Members of the...

Read the full report >> States can stabilize the housing market by preventing unnecessary foreclosures. With the foreclosure crisis in the headlines for over two years now, it is easy to assume that it must be nearing the end. Unfortunately, this crisis is far from over. To date, 2.5 million homeowners have already lost their homes and another 5.7 million...

"Rampant, Pervasive Fraud" Maryland's AG, Doug Gansler, gives a quick overview of the national mortgage settlement, noting that "this is just a down payment by the national banks," not the end of the story. As foreclosures mounted in recent years, the mortgage servicing industry often responded with illegal shortcuts, illegal fees and incompetent management. The situation became so bad that...

An overview of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, focusing on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and mortgage lending provisions. Prepared by Chris Kukla, CRL's Senior Counsel for Government Affairs.