The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is working with other regulators on examiner guidance to help ensure that the agencies enforce new mortgage disclosures in a "corrective" manner, not a "punitive" one, Director Richard Cordray said Tuesday.
During a House Financial Services Committee hearing, Cordray said the agencies were poised to release the guidance at any time, hopefully before the new disclosures go into effect on Oct. 3. He pledged that lenders who are making good-faith efforts to implement the disclosures will have "some period of months" to work out any problems.
"There will be time for them to work to get it right. They don't have to be perfect the first day," Cordray said. "There will be a diagnostic approach to this."
His comments may come as a relief to lenders who are still facing problems in implementing the Truth-in-Lending-Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act integrated disclosures, known as TRID.
"These systems have glitches" and "they are still receiving upgrades and fixes at this late date," said Rod Alba, senior counsel at the American Bankers Association, in an interview.
The CFPB's action would not shield lenders from any class actions or potential liability that results from the use of mistaken disclosures, however.
Many institutions are still waiting for their vendors to provide fully updated software that they need to comply with the new requirements, according to ABA.
"Even when systems are delivered in a timely fashion, critical elements of TRID compliance programs are often not completely operational, or are malfunctioning," ABA said in a memo sent Tuesday to its members.
During an exchange with Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., Cordray said he believes most lenders are acting in good faith.
"Nobody believes that the market participants here are going to abuse consumers," Cordray said. "They are trying to change their systems and get it right."
