I 
115TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 6102 
To provide for the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency to 
establish prudential management and operations standards for mortgage 
servicers, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 14, 2018 
Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California introduced the following bill; which was 
referred to the Committee on Financial Services 
A BILL 
To provide for the Director of the Federal Housing Finance 
Agency to establish prudential management and oper-
ations standards for mortgage servicers, and for other 
purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Homeowner Mortgage 
Servicing Fairness Act of 2018’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE. 
(a) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds that— 
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(1) mortgage servicing plays a critical role in 
determining the likelihood that a delinquent bor-
rower will be able to save their home from fore-
closure, but homeowners do not have the ability to 
choose their mortgage servicers; 
(2) a 2011 Yale Journal on Regulation article 
written by Adam Levitin and Tara Twomey, entitled 
‘‘Mortgage Servicing’’, confirmed that borrowers 
have no control over what bank or non-bank entity 
services their mortgage loan, whether the servicing 
rights on their mortgage are transferred to a new 
entity, or what contractual provisions govern the 
servicing of their mortgage loan; 
(3) a 2011 report entitled ‘‘Interagency Review 
of Foreclosure Policies and Practices’’ conducted by 
the Federal Reserve System, the Office of the Comp-
troller of the Currency, and the Office of Thrift Su-
pervision acknowledged that ‘‘a number of super-
visory actions and industry reforms are required to 
address [weaknesses in foreclosure process govern-
ance] in a way that will hold servicers accountable 
for establishing necessary governance and controls’’; 
(4) there has been abundant evidence since the 
financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 that has indicated 
that some single-family housing mortgage servicers 
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are failing to provide mortgage borrowers with the 
protections against foreclosure that they are entitled 
to by law, including failure to provide mortgage bor-
rowers with critical information about the process of 
applying for foreclosure relief and loan modifica-
tions; 
(5) multiple congressional hearings have uncov-
ered additional evidence of failures in mortgage serv-
icing, including— 
(A) the hearing of the Committee on Fi-
nancial Services of the House of Representa-
tives entitled ‘‘A Review of Mortgage Servicing 
Practices and Foreclosure Mitigation’’, July 25, 
2008 (Serial No. 110–132); 
(B) the hearing of the Subcommittee on 
Insurance, Housing, and Community Oppor-
tunity of the Committee on Financial Services 
of the House of Representatives entitled ‘‘Robo- 
Signing, Chain of Title, Loss Mitigation and 
Other Issues in Mortgage Servicing’’, November 
18, 2010 (Serial No. 111–166); and 
(C) the joint hearing of the Subcommittee 
on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit 
and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Inves-
tigations of the Committee on Financial Serv-
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ices of the House of Representatives entitled 
‘‘Mortgage Servicing: An Examination of the 
Role of Federal Regulators in Settlement Nego-
tiations and the Future of Mortgage Servicing 
Standards’’, July 7, 2011 (Serial No. 112–44); 
(6) in view of the heightened reliance by the 
Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie 
Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Cor-
poration (Freddie Mac) on unilateral reviews of bor-
rowers for loss mitigation in place of reviews of ap-
plications initiated by borrowers, there is an in-
creased need for oversight to bring accountability to 
the loss mitigation review process; 
(7) mortgage borrowers have also faced other 
wide-ranging problems with their mortgage servicers, 
including errors that have cost some borrowers 
money and have cost others their homes; 
(8) such problems have included lapses in basic 
mortgage servicing functions, such as inaccurate 
monthly statements, improperly credited payments, 
improper escrow handling, ignored customer com-
plaints, and improper servicing transfers; 
(9) these failures in mortgage servicing are fur-
ther evidenced by enforcement actions initiated by 
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau against 
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nine different bank and non-bank mortgage servicers 
from 2013 through 2017 for ‘‘mismanaging the loss 
mitigation process’’, ‘‘mistreating mortgage bor-
rowers who were trying to save their homes from 
foreclosure’’, and ‘‘failing borrowers at every stage 
of the mortgage servicing process’’; 
(10) although some Federal regulators, in par-
ticular the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the 
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, have the au-
thority to take enforcement and supervisory action 
against mortgage servicers that harm borrowers, 
Federal regulators should take additional action that 
will protect homeowners from the types of abuses 
that have led to stalled modifications, excess fees, 
and even foreclosure; and 
(11) to ensure market confidence in the United 
States housing system and improve accountability 
and transparency, Federal regulators should be em-
powered to fully exercise all statutorily mandated 
and implied powers to protect consumers from harm-
ful mortgage servicers. 
(b) PURPOSE.—It is the purpose of this Act to ensure 
that mortgage borrowers are protected from abusive serv-
icing practices, to end engagement by mortgage servicers 
in illegal servicing practices, to keep more people in their 
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homes whenever possible, to promote servicers’ compliance 
with the loss mitigation guidelines of Fannie Mae and 
Freddie Mac, and to minimize losses to companies and 
taxpayers. 
SEC. 3. REGULATION AND OVERSIGHT OF MORTGAGE 
SERVICERS. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—Subpart A of part 2 of subtitle 
A of the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety 
and Soundness Act of 1992 (12 U.S.C. 4541 et seq.) is 
amended by adding at the end the following new section: 
‘‘SEC. 1327. PRUDENTIAL MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS 
STANDARDS FOR COVERED SERVICERS. 
‘‘(a) DEFINITIONS.—For purposes of this section, the 
following definitions shall apply: 
‘‘(1) DIRECTOR.—The term ‘Director’ has the 
meaning given such term in section 1303. 
‘‘(2) COVERED SERVICER.—The term ‘covered 
servicer’ means a servicer, as such term is defined 
in section 6(i) of the Real Estate Settlement Proce-
dures Act of 1974 (12 U.S.C. 2605(i)), that con-
ducts mortgage servicing with respect to any single- 
family mortgage loans owned or guaranteed by any 
enterprise. 
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