Monday, November 20, 2006

A Helping Hand In Builder Disputes

Here's an interesting article from Saturday's Washington Post. Note the contact information at the bottom for HUD's RESPA Office.

By Kenneth R. Harney
Saturday, November 18, 2006 ; F01
When home builders behave badly, some of their customers may have an unexpected resource: The federal government's "RESPA police," who say they have become increasingly active in resolving consumer complaints through nonpublic interventions with builders.
RESPA stands for the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, a consumer protection law that targets kickbacks and other settlement-related abuses. The RESPA police are investigators at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. They are best known for their splashy public settlement agreements with real estate, title insurance and mortgage industry firms, sometimes involving hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But with no public fanfare, the RESPA police have begun intervening in complaints brought by individual consumers who say builders are unfairly forcing them to use their affiliated mortgage companies. The affiliates' loan deals, the complaints say, typically are more costly than those available from independent mortgage brokers and lenders...
If you have a complaint involving high-pressure tactics designed to coerce you into using a builder's affiliate, you can call the RESPA enforcement staff at 202-708-0502. Alternatively, you can e-mail hsg-respa@hud.gov. For background on RESPA, visit http://www.hud.gov/.
 
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