Biggers-Waters Act

I see that the OCC has implemented the increased fines for flood violations per Biggers-Waters. Has the increased coverage for multi-family dwellings also become effective?

Yes. My understanding is that the increased penalties and the increased coverage for 5+ family dwellings took effect the day it was signed. The remainder of the provisions require regulations to be written.

Based on the CMP announcements from the FDIC and OCC, it appears that those agencies did not applied the higher CMP amounts for exams occurring before they published their new penalty amounts rules.

They normally don't even apply the full $385, so it will be interesting to see if they actually go up.

I stand corrected. The OCC and Fed have published their quadrennial inflation adjustments to CMP amounts and changed the Flood penalty from $385 to $2000; the FDIC board is approving their adjustments list at their 12/11/12 meeting.

I am sorry to interupt this serious conversation, but does anyone else see the humour in the name of this Act. "Biggers-Waters" related to Flood Insurance.

Actually, the formal title is: “Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act of 2012”.

It is not Biggers.

Thanks for the correction, but it somehow still seems a bit funny to me.

I'm with you Lucky...it's at least apropos

I just don't see the examiners keeping the penalties low. These CMPs go to FEMA, not Treasury (and maybe that is part of the answer) but FEMA is worse than broke. Charging penalties for violations makes more "cents" than all the fees they are assessing or requiring banks to reduce. You can only take so much from each bank, why not hit the violators harder. Anyway, each agency has published the new rates and that may have been the hurdle they were waiting for.

This last month, Nov for October, there was a very small number of flood and HMDA penalties. I was surprised.