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38 TREASURY ISSUES FIRST GUIDANCE ON TERMINATION OF MHA PROGRAM e government's Making Home Affordable (MHA) program was launched by the Obama Administration in February 2009 as a way to stabilize the housing market and help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure. Now, more than seven years after the crisis hit, with the economy having significantly improved from 2008 and many housing fundamentals having returned to their pre-crisis levels, the government is turning its attention toward winding down the MHA program, which is scheduled to end on December 31, 2016. e Department of Treasury on ursday issued its first set of guidelines to servicers for MHA program termination in the form of Supplemental Directive (SD) 16-02. Included in the SD are guidelines for servicers on such topics as policies and procedures to accommodate deadlines; evidence of borrower transmissions and servicer transmissions; the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA), the Unemployment Program (UP), Second Lien Modification Program (2LMP), and Treasury FHA-HAMP and RD (Rural Development) HAMP. e SD also provides guidance as to the eligibility of certain GSE HAMP loans to receive pay-for- performance incentives through the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Servicers must either establish or update their policies and procedures to ensure that all relevant documents and information are processed in accor- dance with the requirements of version 5.0 of the Making Home Affordable Program Handbook for Servicers of Non-GSE Mortgages (Handbook), issued by Treasury on January 6, 2016. e policies and procedures should be designed to reasonably ensure that trial period plans, extinguishment, short sales and deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure can be converted into a permanent modification by December 1, 2007. Servicers should design such policies and procedures to reasonably ensure that trial period plans, extinguishments, short sales and deeds- in-lieu (DIL) of foreclosure under MHA can be converted to a permanent modification, effected or closed, as applicable, by December 1, 2017. CFPB: MORTGAGES REMAIN THE MOST COMPLAINED ABOUT FINANCIAL PRODUCT Mortgage loans in today's housing market are not keeping homebuyers happy, as they are most complained about product in the eighth volume of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) Monthly Complaint Report. e CFPB's report showed that as of February 1, 2016, the CFPB has handled a total of 811,700 complaints nationally, up 8 percent from December 2015 and January 2016. e three most-complained-about financial products were debt collection, mortgages, and credit reporting for January 2016, representing 67 percent of complaints submitted. In January 2016, the Bureau received 21,800 complaints, and 4,263 of these were mortgage- related complaints, up 12 percent month-over- month. Mortgages were the second most complained about category this month but the highest complained about financial product overall. e CFPB has received a total of 213,861 mortgage-related complaints. e CFPB began accepting complaints from consumers about financial products shortly after opening its doors in July 2011. e mortgage market is the largest consumer financial marketplace in the country with more than $10 trillion in total value. e CFPB enacted new mortgage rules in 2014 to ensure strong consumer protections and also ensure that lenders offered affordable mortgages to consumers. "Despite strong protections that have been put in place to protect homeowners, this month's complaint report shows consumers are still having problems when dealing with their mortgages," CFPB Director Richard Cordray said. "e Bureau will continue to work to make sure that consumers are being treated fairly on their mortgage issues." e CFPB once again pointed to the credit reporting agencies, Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian, as the top three most complained about companies from September and November of 2015. e CFPB's Consumer Complaint Database has generated much controversy since June when it began publishing narratives of complaints from consumers. So much so that CFPB Director Richard Cordray issued a rare public response to the criticisms in late November. e CFPB's Ombudsman Office issued its annual report for FY 2015 to Cordray outlining potential changes to the database. One of the items mentioned was a need for the normalization of data presented. Also according to the Ombudsman's report, the CFPB and companies are working together to prevent duplicate complaints from being published in the database and that in recent months the companies are taking more of a role in identifying duplicate complaints. e Ombudsman recommended that Consumer Response share an expanded definition of "duplicate complaint" on the Consumer Complaint Database website to include complaints that are from "the same person, same transaction, and same issue" and not just complaints that are simply verbatim copies of previous complaints. e purpose of expanding the definition of "duplicate complaint" is so database users can adjust their calculations and analyses accordingly, according to the report. "In our FY2014 Annual Report, we highlighted the concern from industry groups about the need for normalization of data in the public Consumer Complaint Database to provide context to the data and continued to hear this and related concerns in FY2015," the Ombudsman stated. "is year, we provided feedback and suggestions to the CFPB regarding normalization of the data. The number of jobs added in February 2016 was 242,000. With upward revisions for December (from 262,000 to 271,000) and January (151,000 to 172.000), the average job gain over the three-month period was 228,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. KNOW THIS

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