Will Enforcement be delayed as TILA-RESPA Disclosures Begin?

The House Financial Services Committee (FSC) has scheduled a hearing (through its subcommittee on Housing and Insurance) on May 14 titled "TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure: Examining the Costs and Benefits of Changes to the Real Estate Settlement Process."  The committee has not released the names of any witnesses but Barbara Mishkin, writing in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) blog maintained by the law firm of Ballard & Spahr is making some guesses about the direction the hearing will take.

New consolidated TILA (Truth-in-Lending Act) and RESPA (Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act) disclosures developed by CFPB are slated to go into effect on August 1 and Mishkin says several FSC members are urging a delay in enforcing use of the forms.   Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO), chair of the subcommittee holding the hearing, wrote a letter to CFPB Director Richard Cordray in March urging the agency to adopt a "hold harmless" period of restrained enforcement until the first of next year and Steve Pearce (R-NM) has cosponsored a bill that would provide lenders a temporary safe harbor from enforcement also until January1, 2016. 

Mishkin said that Cordray, responded to Luetkemeyer that the January 1, 2016 date was one of several his agency had considered for implementing the new disclosures.  However CFPB received extensive feedback from lenders that a New Years date had other operational implications for the industry and that August was a better choice given the slower summertime pace of mortgage applications.  Cordray, however, did not rule out a temporary lenient approach to enforcement and told Luetkemeyer that CFPB "plans to continue its active engagement in supporting industry and consumers throughout the implementation period of the [TRID] Rule."