Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (otherwise know as “RESPA”) reform is back, and in a big way. On Friday, March 14, 2008, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) published its proposed regulations to reform RESPA. 

Ironically, HUD partially titles its rule a “Proposed Rule to Simplify and Improve the Process of Obtaining Mortgages”; however, the rule appears to be far from simple. 

HUD proposes to introduce tolerances for settlement charges, require a new format for disclosure of yield spread premiums, modify the HUD-1 Settlement Statement (“HUD-1”), introduce a new closing script, and amend certain established RESPA definitions, just to name a few. 

To clarify the new regulations, renowned RESPA experts Phillip L. Shulman, Esq. and Holly M. Spencer, Esq., from the firm of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis LLP. (K&L Gates) in their article entitled: RESPA Reform: Déjà Vu All Over; Mortgage Banking & Consumer Credit Alert (published March 24, 2008), provide us with an extensive (and extraordinarily detailed) summary of the most important changes proposed by HUD’s RESPA rule, as well as providing their initial observations and insights as to how the rule may affect and be received by settlement service providers, and all those who are adjunctly related to residential real estate transactions controlled by these new regulations.

Click here, and read many of the technical details of what the new RESPA reforms have to offer.

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Posted in Real Estate Brokers, Developers, Residential Real Estate, RESPA, Attorneys, Bankers, Regulation, Home Equity, Mortgages, Real Estate Laws and Taxes | One Comment