Mortgage & Home Lending

As the mortgage industry and its dynamic regulatory landscape continues to change, we adapt alongside our clients, working to minimize 'their risk in line with their commercial objectives and consumer focus.

Our team combines regulatory depth, transactional savvy, a strategic and sensitive approach to government investigations and enforcement actions, and agile skill in litigation.

We use our experience gained from guiding clients through the industry and market cycles of the past two decades to advise national and regional bank and non-bank mortgage lenders, loan servicers, credit unions, private equity and other mortgage industry investors, fintechs, startups, and providers of alternative home financing in all aspects of mortgage origination and servicing-related transactions, regulatory and compliance counseling, product development, complex litigation, and government supervision and enforcement. Our team provides mortgage industry clients with practical, business-focused recommendations and advice to help them manage their strategic goals mindful of our industry's unique regulatory, compliance, and supervisory risks and agency and investor requirements. Along with our industry-focused team, we bring to bear the resources of DWT's highly regarded practices across the financial services and fintech spectrum, and in adjacent areas such as privacy and data security, technology transactions, tax, M&A, intellectual property, and advertising.

Expert practitioners across our financial services practice group and the firm work with us to provide cross-spectrum mortgage-focused regulatory and product counseling. We help our clients remain on the cutting edge of innovation to deliver the products and services that consumers expect today, balanced against the regulatory demands placed on the mortgage industry by federal and state regulators, as well as the GSEs and other investors. Our team covers consumer disclosure issues, UDAAP, agency and investor requirements, RESPA Section 8 concerns, fair lending and servicing, marketing and advertising requirements, privacy and information security, BSA/AML and fraud, National Flood Insurance Program requirements, paperless and digital lending and servicing issues, HELOC and home-secured open-end lending requirements, lender-placed insurance, and the careful touch needed when it comes to default servicing, loss mitigation, foreclosure, and bankruptcy issues.

We have the specialized expertise and experience necessary to guide our clients through the negotiation, documentation and closing of purchases and sales of mortgage loans and MSRs, including flow and bulk purchases, agreements for the servicing and subservicing of mortgage loans on a bulk and flow basis, as well as the acquisition or sale of mortgage lenders, their assets or related businesses in various M&A transaction structures. We understand and are prepared to navigate the unique considerations that arise when buying or selling the business of a non-bank financial services provider such as a mortgage company, mortgage servicer or other industry participant or related assets. We also recognize the unique vendor management expectations that can stand in the way of an efficient and successful negotiation of a servicing, subservicing or other business process, SaaS, technology platform, outsourcing or other critical services agreement in the industry. No matter what side of the table your business is on when negotiating an origination assistance, servicing, or other agreement related to highly regulated or proprietary processes and sensitive consumer data, we can leverage that experience to shorten your path to a deal.

We know how regulators think. Our team includes experienced former regulators whose government service informs their approach, including lawyers who served at the CFPB, the OCC, the FDIC, the FHFA, the FTC, the Federal Reserve Board, state banking regulators, offices of state attorneys general, and U.S. Attorneys' offices. Our practitioners have successfully managed a wide range of sensitive and high-stakes government examinations, investigations, and enforcement actions for mortgage lenders and servicers and other consumer financial services industry clients. We assist with examination, compliance, and risk management issues. We support internal investigations to determine root causes or respond to whistleblower complaints, and we help navigate the complex relationship issues involved when our mortgage industry clients must engage with regulators. And when regulatory issues move beyond supervision and into enforcement, we provide vigorous and sensitive advocacy and defense, whether strategically responding to a civil investigative demand or subpoena from a federal or state regulator, negotiating a consent order, or litigating if necessary. Our top priority is to help minimize both reputational and financial risk for our mortgage industry clients.

Mortgage lending and servicing disputes increased exponentially in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and alongside the rise of the CFPB and expanded state and federal regulation of the mortgage industry. Our consumer financial services litigation team has been there from the start. We defend mortgage industry participants in nationwide class actions, handle large portfolios of default servicing and foreclosure-related litigation, and other complex litigation faced by our mortgage industry clients. Our consumer financial services litigators include skilled trial attorneys and appellate practitioners. Our decades-long experience defending the mortgage industry, and complementary regulatory expertise, allows us to provide comprehensive compliance and risk counseling along with litigation defense.