New Rules Makes It Harder to Avoid Foreclosure, Groups Say

The Federal Reserve has proposed a series of changes to Truth In Lending Act (TILA) rules governing foreclosure. A coalition of legal rights and consumer groups wants the Fed to withdraw that proposal, saying it would hurt homeowners.

The rule, know as FRB Docket R-1390, contains a series of proposed changes to the TILA rules governing mortgage lending. A few of the proposed changes, including new "material disclosures for home secured credit, would advance consumer protections, the groups say.

Some changes are seen as neither particularly damaging nor particularly beneficial to consumers. But other parts of the proposal, they say, would seriously undermine the reliability of TILA disclosures on home-secured credit.

"Instead of informing consumers about the terms of their loans as Congress intended, these proposals would allow broad misstatements of loan terms through new tolerances that are without statutory authority," the groups said in a letter to the Fed's Board of Governors.

One of the biggest concerns is that the proposed rule that would destroy a key legal tool to allow homeowners to unwind illegal loans and avoid foreclosure.

Astonished

"We are astonished that, with the nation facing its greatest foreclosure crisis since the Great Depression, the Board's proposal would eliminate the single most powerful legal tool that homeowners currently have to stop wrongful foreclosures, the federal right to rescind an illegal loan," said Margot Saunders, Counsel to the National Consumer Law Center.

"The proposed rule not only weakens protections against predatory lending and foreclosures, but it would give lenders more freedom to provide inaccurate information about the cost of their loans," said Michael Calhoun, President of the Center for Responsible Lending.

According to the groups signing the letter, the Fed's proposal would:

Create a major obstacle to remedying an illegal mortgage 

• Since 1968 the Truth in Lending Act has provided that homeowners can unwind loans that violate the law. The Federal Reserve Board's proposal would impose new requirements that would prevent most homeowners from being able to use this remedy, the groups contend.
  

Lower standards for accurate loan information 

• Lenders could understate the amount of monthly loan payments by as much as 100 dollars, according to the groups. The proposed rule also would permit large errors in the lender's statement of the amount of the loan as well as in other important disclosures.
  

The groups called on the Fed to withdraw the entire docket and leave the update of TILA to the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, when it assumes its authority next July.