Senate Leaders Indicate They Will Amend RESPA

Valuation Insights & Perspectives, Wntr, 2001

Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee Subcommittee on Housing, has indicated that the committee will amend the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act early in the 107th Congress. Allard, with support from Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Tex., chairman of the full Banking Committee, is developing a proposal based on recommendations from the Mortgage Bankers of Association of America. Last summer, the MBA delivered its proposed changes of RESPA to the Committee.

Committee leaders have indicated they will not include language addressing predatory lending or loan flipping in their initial proposal. However, sources told the Appraisal Institute Washington office that there are many in the Senate that would like these issues to be addressed and that they are anticipating efforts will be made to include these subjects in the discussions. The Appraisal Institute has been invited to deliver its recommendations to the committee so that they may be reviewed and possibly included in the final proposal.

This is in contrast to Gramm's January 22 outline of his agenda for the Banking Committee in the 107th Congress in which he had moved mortgage reform, predatory lending and loan flipping to the bottom of the agenda. Among other things, "coin reform," "bankruptcy reform," and a "securities law review" appeared to be higher priorities for the Committee.

Said Sen. Gramm: "I believe in the housing area that we will probably spend 2001 in oversight, but I believe we will write a major housing bill in 2002. I am proud of the bill we passed at the end of the last Congress. Senator Sarbanes and I worked together on a bipartisan basis on that bill. And while it got relatively little publicity, there were a lot of good things in that bill."

To view Sen. Gramm's Committee agenda, visit the Senate Banking Committee Web site at www.senate.gov/[sim]banking pre/01/0122prcf.htm. To contact Allard, e-mail senator_allard@exchange.senate.gov