On December 20, 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued File No. 2022-CFPB-0011 against Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. The numbers: a $1.7B civil money penalty and $2B in consumer redress, totaling $3.7B. The largest mortgage-servicing enforcement action of the modern era. The case [...]
A foreclosure on a private note can run from 82 days in New Hampshire to 3,038 days in Louisiana, per ATTOM Q4 2024 data. The national average sits at 762 days. Every month outside foreclosure preserves option value; every month inside it burns money. [...]
Three workout paths sit between the missed payment and the foreclosure file: a repayment plan, a forbearance, or a modification. Each preserves a different mix of lender value, borrower outcome, and timeline. This comparison walks the three side by side using the variables that [...]
The workout file is the only piece of evidence a regulator, a plaintiff's lawyer, or a portfolio buyer reads when they want to know whether the servicer did the work. CFPB Spring 2024 Supervisory Highlights flagged 12 C.F.R. §1024.38(c) recordkeeping failures as a recurring [...]
Foreclosure is the most expensive way for a private lender to resolve a default. ATTOM's Q4 2024 data put the national average foreclosure timeline at 762 days, with Louisiana running 3,038 days and New Hampshire just 82 days. Across that window, the note accrues [...]
Usury compliance produces the same ten questions across most private-lender onboarding conversations. The answers below are reference content drawn from California constitutional and statutory law (Const. art. XV §1; Civ. Code §1916.1), New York General Obligations Law §5-501 and Penal Law §190.40, Regulation Z [...]
California and New York are the two largest private-lending markets in the country and they take opposite approaches to usury. California writes the ceiling into its Constitution and exempts broker-arranged loans by statute. New York runs two ceilings — civil and criminal — and [...]
Carla Barker v. Rokosz, No. 22-CV-2412 (E.D.N.Y. July 8, 2024) is the federal-court template for the Reg Z business-purpose pierce. The lender required the borrower to form a corporation as a condition of obtaining the loan. The corporation took title. The loan was documented [...]
A business-purpose classification under Regulation Z survives challenge only when the file documents every step of the lender's analysis. Comment 3(a)-3 to 12 C.F.R. §1026.3(a) lists five factors; a defensible file holds five matching document categories. This is the step-by-step build private lenders use [...]
California Civil Code §1916.1 exempts loans arranged by a DRE-licensed real-estate broker from the constitutional usury ceiling — but only when the file proves the broker arranged the loan in substance, not just in name. These seven recurring mistakes are the pattern that piercing [...]
