Consumer Finance Litigation

In Bryan v. Federal National Mortgage Association, 2014 WL 2988097 (M.D. Fla. July 2, 2014), plaintiffs alleged violations of RESPA and the applicable regulations set forth in 24 C.F.R. § 3500 and 12 C.F.R. § 1024.30, et seq. (Regulation X) against Seterus and Fannie Mae, respectively. The facts alleged that Fannie Mae was the "master servicer" of the note and mortgage, and Seterus was the "subservicer" of the note and mortgage. Specifically, plaintiffs alleged that defendants Seterus, and Fannie Mae by the failure of Seterus, failed to take timely action to respond to Plaintiffs' requests to correct errors relating to allocation of payments, final balances, and avoidance of foreclosure, and failed to respond within ten business days to plaintiffs' request to provide the identity of the owner or assignee of the loan. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss plaintiff's Amended Complaint pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The District Court denied defendants' motion, however. Defendants contended that alleged statutory violations did not occur because the applicable CFPB mortgage regulations did not go into effect until January 10, 2014. Specifically, defendants contended that § § 2605(k)(1)(C) and (D) did not become effective until January 10, 2014, which was after the conduct alleged in the amended complaint occurred. Plaintiffs argued, however, that the effective date of the CFPB's mortgage regulations was January 21, 2013, based on the language of the Dodd-Frank Act itself and, therefore, were effective at the time of the alleged statutory violations. Although the Court cited Steele v. Quantum Servicing Corp., 2013 WL 3196544 (N.D. Tex. June 25, 2013) (citing the CFPB's final rule's effective date for the Dodd-Frank amendments as January 10, 2014), the court held "that at this stage of the proceedings on a motion to dismiss, . . . the precise dates of the violations are best left for factual development through the discovery process." Accordingly, defendants' motion to dismiss was denied.