RELS Annual Meeting Discussion
Posted on December 16, 2019 by Nancy Liu | Category: Real Estate
Real Estate Attorney Association Annual Meeting Discussion
Attorney Liu has recently attended the Georgia Real Estate Board annual meeting and issued the Pindar Award to the famous Real Estate litigation attorney, Ms. Carol Clarke, on the behalf of the Board.
There are more than 2800 lawyers in Real Estate Law Section of State Bar of Georgia. 24 of them are elected as the board of the Bar and Attorney Liu is the first Asian director in the Board. This year, nearly 400 lawyers attended the meeting. This meeting is mainly to discuss the deep influence to consumers, mortgage industry, real estate brokers and attorneys brought by the depression of real estate this year. As the declination of real estate, several new litigation and dispute cases vaulum are increased. There among, two categories increase a lot: one is Mortgage Fraud and the other is Foreclosure. This annual meeting also discussed the reasons for the stagnant in the whole real estate industry conduced by the Subprime mortgage crisis started from the end of last year as well as the challenge faced at present. After the crisis, the HUD arranged to put out a series of new regulations for the management of real estate industry. At present the committee is soliciting the suggestions about a new proposal on Amendment of the RESPA from professionals in real estate area in the countrywide (including lawyers, land brokers, house loan brokers, etc).
On March 24, 2008, HUD announced a series of new regulations intended for the RESPA, some of the important clauses are given as follows:
- The new Good Faith Estimate and mortgage application forms. Three days after filing mortgage application, the bank or loan broker have to send out the Good Faith Estimate to the proposer. The new Good Faith Estimate form has four sheets in order to enhance the transparency of all expenses in the real estate mortgage as well as the knowledge about the mortgage process for consumers.
- Each fee in the mortgage process, especially the Service Fee and Underwriting Fee charged by the banks or brokers, must keep it when closing as the same as the Good Faith Estimate received by the loaner when he applied for the mortgage. If all the other fees changed, the total gap could not exceed by 10%. Some other fee involved in the mortgage, like local tax, Escrow Reserve and insurance will not bear the restriction of above regulation.
- The banks and brokers have to publicize their Yield Spread Premiums, and put up them as the borrower’s credit in the Good Faith Estimate, not in the form of POC as they did in the past.
- The new Closing Script. Transfer attorneys or property company will read a new Closing Script for the borrowers, in order to explain all kinds of special terms used in the transfer as well as the differences between the Good Faith Estimate and POC etc.
- Prohibit using Affiliated Companies. The new RESPA will clearly prohibit banks, mortgage companies and land agencies to use their affiliated companies to deal with each service in the transfer process. Consumer will be entitled to choose mortgage company, bank and transfer attorney as they like.
Besides above new rules in RESPA proposed by HUD which is still in discussion, some other laws are being proposed, too, one of which is the proposal of the National Registry for Loan Officers. The 375 Proposal of the Senate of Georgia has shown their support of the law in parliament of 2008. In addition, there is another proposal regulating National Registry for Land Appraisal. Both of the two acts are to decrease the fraud cases arising in the real estate appraisal and mortgage.
In the next article, we will explain the new rules in Residential purchase contract in 2008 proposed by Broker Association in Georgia discussed in the conference.
This article is only for your reference. Please do not apply mechanically to any exact cases. You are welcome to consult our attorneys at Liu & Associates, P.C. For contact information, please click here.