Streamlining Disaster Mortgage Forbearance Rules Eyed by CFPB

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to make changes to existing mortgage servicing rules, including potentially making pandemic-era foreclosure prevention tools permanent.

The goal would be to make companies better able to help homeowners avoid foreclosures in a crisis, such as soaring unemployment at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a Thursday blog post.

Some of the measures Congress enacted during the pandemic, through the CARES Act, were to allow homeowners who lost their jobs to pause payments for up to 18 months. The law also extended the repayment period by the same ...