by The Attorney General is proposing new regulations under the Consumer Protection Act (M.G.L. 93A).
The Attorney General summarized wants to enact the new regulations to:
· Prohibit mortgage brokers or lenders from making a loan if they do not have a
reasonable belief that the borrower is able to repay the loan.
· Restrict the abuse of no-documentation or “stated income” loans by requiring that the mortgage broker or lender disclose how the interest rates or other charges will increase under a “no-doc” loan, and obtain the borrower’s signed statement of income in order to process those types of loans.
· Prohibit mortgage brokers from arranging or processing loans that are not in the borrower’s interest, and prohibit brokers from brokering loans if their financial interests conflict with the borrower’s.
· Prohibit mortgage lenders from steering borrowers to loan products that are more costly than those that the borrower qualifies for, and prohibits lenders from discriminating between similarly qualified borrowers.
These new regulations are an update of regulations from 1992 when the last big mortgage crisis affected the Commonwealth. The regulations apply to all residential mortgages, except open end home equity lines of credit.
The update adds new prohibited activities as provisions (15), (16), (17) and (18) under 940 C.M.R 8.06.
I have a lot of concern about knee-jerk reactions to mortgage crisis. One person’s predatory lending is another person’s provider of an opportunity to invest in real estate.
