As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau prepares to conduct its five-year assessment of the 2013 TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure Rule, the American Bankers Association joined several other financial trade groups in an extensive comment letter detailing how the rule has imposed significant and unnecessary costs and liabilities on lenders. While the groups largely agreed with the CFPB’s assessment plan, they emphasized the need to assess the rule’s effect on both consumer protection and market operations.
Acknowledging that it may be challenging to capture the true cost of TRID in the CFPB study, the groups offered findings from ABA’s annual real estate surveys conducted over the course of the TRID implementation period, which “undeniably demonstrate that TRID caused disruptions in mortgage operations, mitigated only by extraordinary efforts and expenditures by industry participants.” They added the regulatory effects of TRID continue to be “substantial” and that “there is a critical need to focus on compliance burden reduction.”
The groups recommended significant reforms to the TRID rule, including wholesale revisions to TRID’s complex “tolerance” rules and re-disclosure requirements, as well as clarifications to unclear and disproportionate liability provisions and improvements to the cure mechanisms.
As part of the ongoing effort to quantify and communicate the effects of TRID, the groups also said they plan to conduct an additional survey on the rule, and expect to submit results to the CFPB by the end of February.