Homebuyers Assistance Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes for an opening statement.

I rise today in opposition to H.R. 3192, a proposal that I believe erodes consumers' ability to have their day in court and that undermines efforts to comply with the CFPB's new TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure act.

When I say TILA and RESPA, I am talking about the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.

Mr. Speaker, I stand in full support of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's decision to engage in restrained enforcement of the new disclosure rules until 2016, and I support the FFIEC's recent announcement that prudential regulators' supervision of financial institutions' compliance with the new rules will recognize the scope and scale of the changes necessary for financial institutions and other affected entities to effectively comply.

Simply speaking, when the business community and Democrats and Republicans all basically said, ``We believe that these integrated rules are complicated. It is going to take industry time to get up to speed,'' they have got to change their paper. They have got to train their employees, et cetera, et cetera. We all agree that there should be a grace period.

So, with that, my support for a temporary period of restrained administrative enforcement and supervision reflects the recognition of the massive undertaking that lenders and other settlement providers have undergone in preparation for the new disclosure rules.

Now, given the administrative liability that lenders would face under both the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and the Truth in Lending Act, I fully understand the real concerns that affected entities have, given the scale and scope of the changes called for under the new disclosure rules.

Mr. Speaker, industry requests to date that the Bureau and other Federal regulators take a more thoughtful approach with respect to their enforcement and supervision is reasonable.

My support for the actions taken to date by regulators to consider good faith compliance efforts by lenders and other entities affected by the new disclosure rules does not, however, extend to suspending, even temporarily, one of the more important consumer protections available to the Truth in Lending Act, which is a consumer's right to bring an action protecting themselves in the event that a lender makes an inaccurate, untimely, misleading disclosure.

Basically, what we are talking about now is who is going to protect the consumer in all of this. We are saying that there is a need to protect consumers. Those who oppose the amendment that I tried to bring to the floor to do just that are saying they are not on the side of the consumer.

While the good faith provision in H.R. 3192 does allow consumers to bring actions in response to egregious violations of the Truth in Lending Act, consumers can still rely on inaccurate or misleading disclosure errors that are made in good faith.

Under current law, borrowers can bring an action where a disclosure is inaccurate or misleading, even if the error is made in good faith, and the burden under current law is on the lender to prove that their disclosure is consistent with the Truth in Lending Act.

Now we have a change. In contrast, under H.R. 3192, this legislation, the burden is placed on the consumer to demonstrate from the onset of an action that the error was not made in good faith, a bar that is virtually impossible for most consumers to overcome. That is a drastic departure from current law.

The private right of action under the Truth in Lending Act serves two important purposes:

First, it allows consumers to protect themselves from inaccurate, untimely, or misleading mortgage disclosures.

Second, through the act's provision of statutory and class-action damages, as well as attorneys' fees and court costs, TILA also provides clear incentives for lenders to ensure that the disclosures they provide are timely and accurate.

I just want to take a look at what the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure would require. Let us take a look at what we are talking about.

In this document, they identify the amounts for the loan, the interest rates, the monthly principal and interest, whether or not there are prepayment penalties, whether or not there is a balloon payment, on and on and on. It gets down to exactly what is being disclosed to the consumer.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker and Members, my friends on the opposite side of the aisle keep making the argument about the grace period. That should not even be discussed here because we have agreed, Mr. Cordray from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has agreed and everybody has agreed, that there should have been a grace period. That is not what my amendment was about that they would not allow me to take up on the floor.

Mr. Speaker, my amendment is about consumer protection. They know it, and they are trying to keep people misled by coming in here with their props and saying that this bill is 1,800 pages when, in fact, it is not. So I want everybody to be clear that this is not about the grace period, and this is not about not giving the industry an opportunity to get its act together. Really, the debate should be about whether or not they protect consumers, and they don't.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman).

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Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I think it is important for us all to really understand what is taking place here today.

First of all, I want to warn against misleading information. When we keep hearing that those stack of papers represent the bill--that the bill is 1,800 pages long--that is not the case. As a matter of fact, the chairman of the committee knows that 171 pages are simply sample model forms to say to the banks: These are the kind of forms that you need, and you can take these samples and use them: 63 pages are description of the rationale behind the rule, why do we have this rule; 15 pages are summarizing the rulemaking process; 308 pages with section-by-section analysis.

So that is not the bill, those pages that you see, the props that are being used.

If we go to the beginning of this, you have to understand that it was Dodd-Frank that decided they wanted to make this process more easily understood by the consumers. Out of the Dodd-Frank legislation, they are the ones that combined both TILA and RESPA into this integrated disclosure form to make it simpler.

So despite the fact that the banks and the industry have--particularly the big banks--thousands of employees, millions of dollars, doing big trades, et cetera, et cetera, they said: We really can't get our act together in the length of time that is given us with this rule.

So for some of us who thought, well, you know, they are very well-staffed, they have a lot of money, they could really do this, but we will take them at their word. And not only that, some of us on the Democratic side said we would take them at their word, Mr. Cordray led the effort in saying, all right, there should be a grace period.

I don't care what my chairman said. If Mr. Cordray did not say it in the exact words the way that he wanted him to say it, that is just too bad; but the fact of the matter is he did say it, that he would support a grace period, and that is what we have all done.

So given that he has said that, given that we have support for it on the Democratic side and the Republican side, really, there is no need for the bill. This is just taking up precious time and energy for something that is not needed.

I think I know why there is such a fight for this legislation. Because it includes in it something that would protect the lenders even when they make a big mistake.

We talk about good faith, but I want to tell you what is included in this Integrated Disclosure. People are talking about real issues here.

Will the loan amount be the same that the consumer has agreed upon? Will the interest rate be the same? Or will somehow there be a little mistake; instead of 3.8 in interest rates, it is going to end up 4.2 or 4.3? If that happens, what can the consumer do if you don't give them the right to go into court? Basically, they can do nothing, and the lender can say ``too bad about that.''

We cannot treat consumers that way. We have to give them the right to have their day in court. And even with the burden being on the consumer to have to prove that the lender acted in good faith, the consumer needs to have the right to go and make the case.

And so my amendment that was not allowed in the Rules Committee and we did not get a chance to come to the floor and debate it because they closed down the rule simply means that my friends on the opposite side of the aisle said: We don't care what you are saying about protecting the consumers. We know that there could be some mistakes. However, we say, if those mistakes are made, it was in good faith. They didn't really mean to do it and, no, the consumer doesn't have a right to go into the court and make the case.

That is not right. It should not happen.

As our leader has said, we have gone through a period of time where this country almost had a depression. We certainly did have a recession because the big banks and too many of the banks and financial institutions in this country came up with all of these exotic products. People were misled. They signed on the dotted line for mortgages that many of them could not afford. These mortgages reset, and people ended up paying higher interest rates 6 months or a year after they signed on the dotted line. They didn't know. They didn't understand.

So you can say that the banks who treated the consumers this way were acting in good faith and they didn't intend to do it, but we know enough now that we cannot depend on representations of ``I didn't mean it.'' If you didn't mean it, you shouldn't have done it. And if you did it, you need to be able to be dealt with in a court of law.

So here we are with this legislation. And if you had not put that part in the legislation, there would not even have to be a discussion. You are absolutely right; it could have been on suspension or there could not have been a bill at all.

But, no, the concern about the consumer is not what appears to be foremost in the minds of those who would dismiss their opportunity to go to court. We should not treat our consumers that way. We should have learned our lesson. We should have learned our lesson.

Folks who are buying a home maybe for the first time and this is the biggest decision and this is the biggest credit action that they are going to make in their lifetime, they need to have some assurances that they are being treated right.

Why do you think we have all of these disclosure laws? Before these disclosure laws were developed, people were misled. They ended up with balloon payments, prepayment penalties, on and on and on.

We are saying, yes, let's have a grace period; let's allow the banks to use this time to get their house in order. They can train their staff. They can get their papers together. We agree to all of that. That is not an issue, and we say it over and over again because we don't want anybody to be misled that somehow we are standing in the way of the great spirit. We are not doing that. We agree to that. What we are standing in the way of is abuse of our consumers.

We created this Consumer Financial Protection Bureau because our consumers did not have the protection that they needed. Our regulators didn't pay attention to consumers. They were supposed to be there, not only to deal with the possible risks in the system, et cetera, and the consumers, but nobody was looking out for the consumers.

So this is the centerpiece of Dodd-Frank reforms, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The centerpiece of Dodd-Frank is to protect consumers and not allow them to be tricked, not allow them to be misled, not allow them to be prevented from going to court. You can describe it any way that you want to describe it, but the fact of the matter is you are either with the consumers or you are not.

We on this side of the aisle, for the most part, are telling you over and over again that we are with the great spirit. We are not with your actions and that part of the bill that will not allow our consumers to be protected.

And you can protest all you want. You cannot tell me if Ms. Jones, in signing on the dotted line, ends up with a higher interest rate than she thought she was getting and if she does not have the right to go into court, what happens. Who is going to protect her if she does not have the right to go into court and make the case and show that this is not simply an error of a comma or a period? This is an action that does not show good faith. This is an action that will cause me to pay hundreds of more dollars for my loan that I had not anticipated.

Consumers should not be treated that way. Consumers should be protected in every possible way that we can because, in the final analysis, that is why they send us to Congress, to be able to be their voice, to speak for them. We on this side of the aisle will continue to do that in spite of the tricks of the trade that are being employed by others.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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