Tuesday, April 14, 2015

House Republicans want to do away with consumer protections for mobile home buyers

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/04/14/3646494/manufactured-home-loans-shouldnt-be-predatory-but-they-are/

I just listened to (Vice) Presidential candidate Marco Rubio make the argument that Big Government regulation is the reason ordinary people are getting screwed by banks. If you can believe that, you can believe the Republicans have your best interests in mind, mobile home owners:

"The House will vote Tuesday to repeal consumer protections for low-income borrowers in rural America who have seen the promise of affordable housing turned into a financial sinkhole by a mobile home industry that makes pre-manufactured houses far more expensive to buy than they need to be.
The bill is part of the GOP majority’s campaign to chisel away at specific pieces of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul that became law in 2010 but which left many details to be filled in later by regulators. In this case, it was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that did that filling. After long study of both publicly-available data and proprietary information from the industry itself, the CFPB began enforcing new consumer protections for people who borrow money for a manufactured home. When Rep. Stephen Fincher’s bill to roll back those regulations passes on Tuesday, the rules will have been in force for barely 15 months. The mobile home financing market is an esoteric landscape for a battle between consumer advocates, regulators, and politicians. Compared to the American Dream trappings that come with traditional homeownership, families in mobile homes don’t have much cultural cache."

Monday, April 13, 2015

HOA oversight bills die in Florida

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/business/hoa-oversight-bills-doa-in-tallhassee/nksWS/

"Homeowners hoping for more state oversight of the association boards that rule their communities are out of luck this year as legislation to increase scrutiny of HOAs died for lack of support in Tallahassee.  It’s the second year in a row that proposals to give the Department of Business and Professional Regulation power to investigate complaints against homeowners associations and create educational programs for HOA board members failed to even make it to a single committee hearing."