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The Department of Housing and Urban Development has announced approval of an agreement between the owners and managers of Maycliff Mobile Home Park in Las Vegas, Nevada, and a family to resolve allegations that the landlords refused to allow an elderly woman’s son and his pregnant wife to live at the property after their child was born. Two additional agreements were also announced between the owners and managers of Plainview Mobile Home Park in Casper, Wyoming, and two families who complained they were unlawfully denied the reasonable modifications they needed.

The CFPB has published final rules amending threshold amounts in Regulations C (HMDA) and Z (TILA). The Regulation C amendment leaves the asset-size exemption threshold unchanged at $44 million. The Regulation Z amendment makes a change, effective January 1, 2017, in the asset-size threshold for certain creditors to qualify for an exemption to the requirement to establish an escrow account for a higher-priced mortgage loan based on the annual percentage change in the average of the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) for the 12-month period ending in November. The exemption threshold is adjusted to increase to $2.069 billion from $2.052 billion. Therefore, creditors with assets of less than $2.069 billion (including assets of certain affiliates) as of December 31, 2016, are exempt, if other requirements of Regulation Z also are met, from establishing escrow accounts for higher-priced mortgage loans in 2017. This asset limit will also apply during a grace period, in certain circumstances, with respect to transactions with applications received before April 1 of 2018. The adjustment to the escrows exemption asset-size threshold will also increase a similar threshold for small-creditor portfolio and balloon-payment qualified mortgages.

The amendments to Regulations C and Z have been posted to BankersOnline's Regulations pages.

OFAC has added a Mauritanian, Salack Ould Cheikh Mohamedou, to its SDN list as a specially designated global terrorist.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has announced that a consent order has been issued against Military Credit Services, LLC (MCS) for making loans with improper disclosures. This is the CFPB’s second enforcement action against MCS. In 2014, the CFPB, along with the states of North Carolina and Virginia, sued the company for similar violations, and the company was ordered to revise its contract disclosures in 2015. In the current action, the CFPB ordered the company to ensure that its contracts comply with the law. It also required the company to hire an independent consultant to review its practices and to pay a $200,000 civil penalty.

The OCC has released its 22nd Annual Survey of Credit Underwriting Practices, which indicates underwriting practices among national banks and federal savings associations eased for a fourth consecutive year in 2016.

The Federal Reserve Board has announced the execution of a written agreement with Rock Bancshares, Inc. and its subsidiary, Heartland Bank, both of Little Rock, Arkansas.

OFAC has announced its designation of seven individuals and eight entities under two Executive Orders related to Russia and Ukraine, and identified two vessels as blocked property. In addition, the names of twenty-six entities identified as subsidiaries of the Russian Agricultural Bank and Novatek were added to the Sectoral Sanctions Identification (SSI) list. See our December 20, 2017, OFAC Update for the details.

HUD has published a final rule requiring installation of broadband infrastructure at the time of new construction or substantial rehabilitation of multifamily rental housing that is funded or supported by HUD, with limited exceptions. The rule, which does not apply to multifamily rental housing that only has a mortgage insured by HUD's Federal Housing Administration or with a loan guaranteed under a HUD loan guarantee program, is effective January 19, 2017.

The CFPB has announced its filing of complaints against four Virginia-based companies — Spotsylvania Gold & Pawn, Inc.; Fredericksburg Pawn, Inc.; Pawn U.S.A., Inc.; and A to Z Pawn, Inc. The CFPB alleges that the companies misled their customers about the costs of their loans by disclosing deceptively low annual percentage rates (APRs) that did not reflect all of the fees and charges tacked onto the loans.

The Federal Reserve Board has released “Experiences and Perspectives of Young Workers,” a report presenting data collected in 2015 as part of the Board's second Survey of Young Workers, which provides a snapshot of the educational attainment, employment experience, job market outlook, and financial self-sufficiency of 18- to 30-year-olds.