Schlifske’s 14-year tenure as CEO defined by historic business performance, bold client experience transformation, unsurpassed financial strength, exceptional product value, and meaningful investments in talent and diversity Tim Gerend to succeed Schlifske as the company’s next CEO, effective January 1, 2025 MILWAUKEE, Jan. 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — After 14 years as Northwestern Mutual’s Chief Executive … [Read more…]
In a statement, Rigdon said his goal is to “implement forward-thinking marketing strategies that not only elevate our brand but also provide tangible benefits to our loan officers and clients, staying ahead with the latest trends in mortgage technology and digital marketing.” Summit Funding CEO Todd Scrima commented on Rigdon’s appointment: “Trey’s track record in … [Read more…]
A cohort of former employees at now-defunct reverse mortgage lender Live Well Financial has been granted final settlement approval in a class action lawsuit brought against the company’s estate in May 2019.
Monica Williams, a former loan account manager in Live Well’s Richmond, Va. headquarters, initially filed the suit days after Live Well had halted funding for new loans and subsequently ceased operations entirely.
“After reviewing the terms of the settlement agreement, the court has determined that the legal and factual bases [outlined] in the motion establish just cause for the relief granted herein,” the order reads based on court filings reviewed by RMD.
The class action lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware seeking 60 days of wages and benefits, alleging termination without cause and notice as required by law. Live Well initially announced its intent to challenge the suit a month after its filing.
Williams brought the suit on behalf of herself and other former Live Well employees who were terminated “without cause, as part of, or as the result of, mass layoffs or plant closings ordered by [Live Well] on or about May 3, 2019,” the initial court complaint said.
After dragging on for the better part of four years while an adjacent criminal case against former executive leaders was playing out in the U.S. Southern District Court of New York, the class in the Delaware suit received pending approval for a $1.1 million settlement last November.
At that time, attorneys for Williams and the class at large said the figure “provides for payment more than sixty-six (66) percent of the maximum priority [Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN)] damages and eliminates any further accrual of litigation expenses in prosecuting the action against [Live Well], including trial and possible appeals.”
In a 92-minute court hearing held on Jan. 18, presiding Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein gave final approval for the settlement to Williams’ attorneys and David Carickhoff, the Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee overseeing the estate of Live Well Financial.
Alongside the preliminary approval, court filings indicated that the settlement would cap the payment at $13,650 per employee. This included all counsel fees and expenses, making the class consist of roughly 81 people. A class of 125 people was initially estimated when the suit was filed in 2019.
RMD reached out to attorneys for Williams but did not hear back before this article was published.
This is the latest chapter in the saga of Live Well Financial. The government indicted three former company executives over what prosecutors called a reverse mortgage bond pricing scheme, with the company’s former CFO and former portfolio manager avoiding prison time after consideration of their cooperation with authorities.
A dispute over restitution continues to play out in court between the government and counsel for the lender’s former CEO, who remains free on bond pending an appeal of a prison sentence.
Burrell countersued earlier this month, arguing that he shouldn’t have to pay the bank back since it knew he was using the business credit for personal expenses.
The bank has asked an Aspen judge to let it foreclose on six of Burrell’s properties as collateral.
Public records show that the businessman owns two homes in Basalt, Colo. and a 190-acre ranch in New Mexico, valued at $21.1 million, which is currently up for auction.
However, per a report on luxury real estate listings site Mansion Global, only one of Burrell’s five children are still living at home, so Burrell and his wife, Nikola, have decided to downsize.
First Western reportedly wants to foreclose on Burrell’s home in Aspen and ranch near the affluent ski town, as well as a property in Nantucket and land in Vero Beach, Fla., according to The Denver Post.
In his countersuit, Burrell argued that if First Western forecloses on his properties, “Burrell, Burrell’s wife, and Burrell’s minor children are at risk of losing their primary residence and have incurred emotional distress,” according to the countersuit, The Denver Post reported.
In a bizarre twist, Burrell also argued that it was “improper” for the bank to give him business loans when it was well aware most of the funds would be spent on his personal life — such as his divorce payments, buying a yacht and building a house in Basalt, Colo.
“Additionally, First Western did not make a reasonable and good faith determination at or before consummation that Burrell had a reasonable ability to repay,” his countersuit states, per The Denver Post.
The bank also didn’t allow him to refinance, didn’t consistently provide him with paperwork for the loans and wrongly accepted his personal homes as collateral, Burrell alleged, the outlet reported.
Burrell’s counsel, attorneys Sarah Auchterlonie and Courtney Bartkus in the Denver office of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The Post has also sought comment from First Western Bank.
First Western’s CEO Scott Wylie referred to “a client we’ve had since 2018” who is “facing a liquidity crunch and becoming delinquent on their payments,” during an earnings call in October.
He noted that the bank had to declare the loans in default in order to seek the collateral, but assured: “We think we’re going to have a full recovery.
The real estate collateral that we have is in some very desirable markets. It’s in Aspen, it’s in Nantucket, it’s in (Florida),” he said.
Though Wylie didn’t name the borrower, Burrell argued that analysts listening to the call were able to figure it out, according to The Denver Post.
Burrell said that one listener even called him to ask about his personal finances.
This has caused Burrell and his investment company “reputational harm and public disgrace,” he argued.
Last month, Burrell and his second wife opened an auction for an 8,400-square-foot estate located on Aspen’s Red Mountain — the Burrell family’s “primary home,” according to Mansion Global — and a nearby, 4,200-acre ranch in Carbondale as part of an $86.5 million package.
Two of his children from his first marriage with Australian jewelry magnate Katherine Jetter are in college, while his third child with Jetter is set to head off to college next year.
Burrell also has two kids with Nikola — one of which is at a boarding school in Boston, leaving just one at home, according to Mansion Global.
Sotheby’s Concierge Auctions led the bidding, and has since marked the ranch on its website as “sale pending,” while the Red Mountain home’s bid deadline has been extended to Feb. 15.
Burrell, the founder of investment firm The Burrell Group, claimed that First Western’s lawsuit violates federal lending laws as it interferes with the auction of his Red Mountain estate, a property valued at $38.5 million.
He is also seeking damages for what he claims was an invasion of privacy and public outing of his financial situation by First Western, The Denver Post reported.
Fifty-five percent of surveyed baby boomers plan to remain in their existing homes as they age, but less than a quarter of those surveyed have any plans to renovate their homes to more safely and easily accommodate natural changes that come with aging.
This is according to a new report from home improvement services company Leaf Home and market research firm Morning Consult, which enlisted responses from 1,001 baby boomer homeowners (aged 59–77) and 1,001 millennials (aged 27–42) in late December 2023 and early January 2024.
The report describes homes owned by baby boomers as “time capsules,” since most of the surveyed boomer cohort (73%) said they have lived in their homes for 11 years or more. This is combined with the finding that “over half of their homes were built in 1980 or earlier with many never investing in renovations,” according to the results.
For millennials and younger generations who could eventually purchase these homes in the future, this creates a “looming underinvestment crisis that promises a future of deferred maintenance for their millennial inheritors,” the report said.
But for those who are aging in place in these homes today, there is also a notable deficit of renovations and added safety features, which could prove problematic for those who will naturally develop vision, mobility or cognitive impairments as time progresses, the report said.
Another recent report found that the current housing inventory is ill-equipped to facilitate aging in place safely for older Americans.
Just 24% of baby boomers are preparing their homes for aging, and even fewer are adding other safety features. Roughly 75% of baby boomer respondents report that they “have never added safety or accessibility features in their homes,” while 81% of the cohort report planning to leave an inheritance of some kind when they pass away.
Roughly half of millennial respondents (51%) expect to receive no inheritance.
“The housing market is caught in a generational tug-of-war. Boomers will soon face aging-in-place hurdles, while millennials will face the surprise of homes in need of major upgrades,” said Jon Bostock, CEO of Leaf Home, in a statement accompanying the report.
“With an aging and ignored inventory of homes available in the next decade, we may see a crisis that will overwhelm the home improvement industry and strain the budgets of inheriting millennials, impacting the housing market,” Bostock added.
An inside-the ballpark viewpoint As head of a digital closing platform for the mortgage industry, Sachdev is privy to the inner workings of numerous mortgage lenders. Given his perch, he revealed which of the two options – tech investment or staff cuts – is the better option. “I actually think that tech is the better … [Read more…]
Smartfi Home Loans, a reverse mortgage wholesale lender, is now using the LoanPASS product and pricing engine.
With over 110 years of collective reverse mortgage experience, Smartfi Home Loans boasts a seasoned team deeply rooted in the industry. Smartfi operates as a wholesale lender in more than 40 states and continues to expand its commitment to providing secure access to home equity for seniors.
“Smartfi is uniquely positioned in the industry with a team that shares a common vision for how to grow the market and expand home equity use in retirement,” says Gregg Smith, CEO of Smartfi Home Loans, in a release. “Partnering with LoanPASS to implement their Product and Pricing Engine was an easy decision as it seamlessly aligned with our vision. Their innovative solution supports our commitment to streamlining the lending process for our partners.”
“We are thrilled to welcome Smartfi Home Loans as another new customer and valued partner,” says Bill Mitchell, CRO of LoanPASS. “In addition to our shared commitment to drive technology and business process transformation for all our clients, the LoanPASS rules engine was designed to give Smartfi Home Loans complete control over products and pricing.”
“Whether it’s a forward or reverse loan, LoanPASS was designed and architected to break industry convention and disrupt the market for decisioning engine technologies,” Mitchell adds. “LoanPASS is quickly becoming recognized as the leader in advanced pricing engine technology solutions for lending institutions throughout the U.S.”
At Fannie Mae’s not-so-annual meeting held in Washington today, president and CEO Daniel Mudd told shareholders that he doesn’t expect a housing market recovery until late 2009 “at the earliest.”
“This is the worst housing and mortgage market in recent memory, and we are still working our way to the bottom, in our view,” Mudd added.
His grim estimate is probably the worst of a slew of recent predictions made by executives and analysts, with others seeing a recovery as soon as mid-2008 and early 2009.
Mudd blamed recent housing woes on unaffordable prices, and said average home prices will decline another four to five percent in 2008.
“With the decrease of affordability, a lot of those products grew up to get payments down,” he said, with respect to the recent surge in subprime lending.
At the same time, Mudd assured investors that the mortgage financier “will weather the turbulence of today’s mortgage market and prosper when better conditions return,” claiming the company had made a series of improvements over the past three years.
Fannie posted a third-quarter loss of $1.4 billion, prompting the largest purchaser and guarantor of U.S. home mortgages to cut its dividend by 30 percent and sell $7 billion in preferred stock to raise capital.
“We have to have a solid and conservative capital position to go into a market this challenging,” he said.
Interestingly, it was Fannie Mae’s first annual meeting since May 2004, five months before the accounting scandal rocked the company and led to the ousting of its top executives.
The good news is borrowers will have ample time to up their credit scores and get their asset and income documentation in order for the coming housing bonanza of 2010.
loanDepot’s latest update of its ongoing cyberattack shows that hackers gained access to the sensitive personal information of about 16.6 million individuals. The update, released Monday, does not reveal details of the data accessed by the unauthorized third party.
“Unfortunately, we live in a world where these types of attacks are increasingly frequent and sophisticated, and our industry has not been spared. We sincerely regret any impact to our customers,” Frank Martell, loanDepot CEO, said in a statement.
The company said it will notify individuals affected by the cyber incident and “offer credit monitoring and identity protection services at no cost to them.”
The top-15 U.S. mortgage lender informed customers and the wider public of the cyberattack that brought its systems down through a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Jan. 8. It indicated the date of the earliest event was Jan. 4.
On Jan. 18, loanDepot began to restore its servicing customer portal. It also brought back online its portal for Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) customers, “MyloanDepot customer portal” dedicated to online applications and status tracking, and the “mellohome” portal for its real estate affiliate.
Martell said the entire team has worked tirelessly to support customers and partners and is “pleased” by the progress in quickly bringing systems back online.
While the company is working to restore all its technology systems, it’s already the target of a class-action lawsuit filed by a customer.
On Jan. 19, Daroya Isaiah filed a class-action-seeking lawsuit against the company, claiming that by then, loanDepot hadn’t disclosed the total number of customers impacted by the cybersecurity incident and the sensitive personal information or PII accessed.
The lawsuit states that customers “have been placed in an imminent and continuing risk of harm from fraud, identity theft, and related harm caused by the data breach and should remain vigilant for any signs of fraud or identity theft for the indefinite future.”
The customer said since the data breach, she has experienced “a significant increase in SPAM phone calls or text messages; and noticed strange information or accounts on her credit report.” She believes it could be attributed to the data breach.
The plaintiff accuses the company of negligence, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment, among other allegations.
A spokesperson at loanDepot said the company does not comment on “pending litigation.”
Patriot Bank has agreed to pay $1.9 million to settle a probe into allegations the lender avoided providing mortgage services to majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Memphis and discouraged people seeking credit in those communities from obtaining home loans, the Justice Department said Wednesday.
From 2015 through at least 2020, other banks received nearly 3.5 times as many loan applications compared to Patriot in majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Memphis, the agency said.
Under the proposed consent order, Patriot will invest at least $1.3 million in a loan subsidy fund to increase home mortgage, home improvement and home refinance for majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhood residents.
Dive Insight:
Wednesday’s agreement comes more than two years after the DOJ announced a coordinated effort to fight discrimination against communities of color alongside the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. With the Patriot settlement — the 11th redlining case since 2021 — the initiative will secure over $109 million in relief.
“The Justice Department is dedicated to stamping out discriminatory lending practices across this country and we are vigorously committed to holding lenders accountable, no matter their size,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s civil rights division said in a statement Wednesday. “This settlement will provide many Memphis families with access to credit that will improve the quality of their lives while opening up opportunities to build intergenerational wealth.”
Patriot Bank, a community bank with eight branches serving residents in Memphis and Shelby, Tipton and Fayette counties, co-operated with the department’s investigation and worked with it to resolve the redlining allegations, the DOJ said.
“Patriot Bank has always acted to serve the home mortgage credit needs in minority neighborhoods, and the bank’s strong record speaks for itself and flatly contradicts any allegation of wrongdoing,” John Smith, president and CEO of Patriot Bank, said in a statement. “We are proud of our record and strongly deny that Patriot Bank ever avoided originating home mortgage loans in Black and Hispanic areas of the Memphis market.”
The DOJ alleged that during the six-year period, Patriot’s home mortgage lending was focused “disproportionately” on White areas around the City of Memphis.
“Even when Patriot generated loan applications from majority-Black and Hispanic areas, the applicants themselves were disproportionately white,” the DOJ said.
Under the proposed consent order, Patriot will spend $375,000 for advertising, outreach, consumer financial education and credit counseling focused on majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. Patriot must also invest $225,000 in community partnerships to provide services that increase residential mortgage credit access for residents of those areas.
Patriot will also dedicate two mortgage loan officers to serve majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in the bank’s service area and employ a director of community lending to oversee the continued lending development in communities of color.
The DOJ said it investigated Patriot’s lending practices after receiving a referral from the bank’s regulator, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Patriot said it voluntarily collaborated with the agency to resolve the allegations made against the lender.
“The bank entered into a Consent Order with the DOJ because the terms of the agreement affirm and adopt the programs and actions that the bank has already been implementing on its own for many years to help meet mortgage credit needs in the communities it serves, including its investment of $1.9 million in reaching and serving communities of color, as the Consent Order itself states,” the bank said in a statement.
Recently, Patriot partnered with a leading community development organization and the City of Memphis to finance a residential subdivision in a low-income and Black neighborhood in South Memphis, the bank said.
This is the third time Memphis has been in the news for a redlining probe since an effort to curb discrimination against communities of color was launched in 2021 by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and Clarke.
In October 2021, the DOJ, CFPB and OCC announced a $5 million settlement with Trustmark Bank over allegations the $17 billion-asset Jackson, Mississippi-based bank engaged in discriminatory lending practices in Memphis from 2014 to 2018.
Almost a year later, in September 2022, the DOJ announced an agreement with Evolve Trust and Bank, headquartered in Memphis, to settle lending discrimination based on race, sex and national origin in the pricing of its residential mortgage loans from at least 2014 through 2019.
This story was originally published on Banking Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Banking Dive newsletter.