The
American Land Title Association has launched a
multi-pronged Title
Industry Consumer Initiative and the TLTA Board of
Directors has voted to officially support them in this
effort.
Listed below are links to the components of the
initiative and we urge you to take the time to review
them. The special consumer website
www.homeclosing101.org
is available via the link on the right. We also
urge you to evaluate the ALTA Principles of Fair Conduct
and consider adopting them in your business as a way to
support this important effort to enhance the
professionalism of our industry and better serve the
consumer.
PLEASE NOTE:
Some information on this site
may not be applicable to Texas regulations and TLTA recommends that
you
contact a
TLTA member company
in your area to answer specific questions.
RESPA
Update
New RESPA enforcement tool proposed
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
filed a “Notice of Proposed Information Collection: Comment Request;
Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) Web Site Questionnaire” in
the Federal Register on November 8. The proposal states: “The Real
Estate Settlement Procedures Act insures that consumers are provided
with greater and timely information on the nature and costs of the
settlement process and are protected from unnecessarily high settlement
charges caused by abusive practices. The RESPA Web site Complaint
Questionnaire will provide for a common website for consumers and
settlement service providers to assist in the enforcement of RESPA.
Members of the public may submit complaints to HUD. The Federal
Government will use the disclosed information to investigate alleged
violations of RESPA regulations by settlement service providers.” There
is speculation that HUD proposed the creation of the website due to
members in the industry urging HUD to improve their enforcement actions.
TLTA invited to participate in discussions on
RESPA reform HUD
Secretary Alphonso Jackson announced on Monday, June 27, HUD’s plans for
reforming RESPA. The Department’s plan for reforming the regulatory
requirements of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) will
include three informal meetings in July and August with consumer
organizations and industry representatives. We are excited to report
that TLTA has been invited to participate at the July 28 meeting in
Washington,
D.C. We have worked very hard over the last 3 years to
establish ourselves as a serious party to this issue, so we are thrilled
to have been included in this process. As you may recall, a group of
TLTA representatives met with Secretary Jackson last summer and
requested that TLTA be included in any future HUD discussions due to
Texas’ large number of small business owners and agents. Texas is only
one of four state land title associations that has been invited to
participate.
HUD holds first RESPA roundtable meeting
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) held the first of
three roundtable meetings on July 14 in Washington D.C. to discuss RESPA
reform issues. As reported in the June 30 Dateline Austin, TLTA
has been invited to participate at the July 28 meeting. Attending on
behalf of TLTA, will be President Bruce Liesman and D.C. Lobbyist Jim
Hyland.
We learned from the July 14 meeting that HUD outlined four goals for
RESPA reform: simplicity, clarity, transparency and greater certainty of
closing costs. They also discussed two new HUD forms: Mortgage Package
Offer (MPO) and a revised Good Faith Estimate (GFE). These are DRAFT
forms that reflect HUD's position on
The
Good Faith Estimate and
The
Mortgage Package Offer in 2004. These forms do not necessarily
indicate the Department's current thinking and are provided to stimulate
a dialogue among those consumer and industry organizations with an
interest in RESPA reform. A large part of the discussion focused on the
“more” controversial issues initiated by the 2004 proposed rule: yield
spread premium disclosures, packaging and the Section 8(a) exemption.
