PHH Mortgage Corp.’s failure to follow state requirements for vacant real-estate-owned assets in the Empire State will cost it more than $100,000.
New York’s
Vacant and Abandoned Property Law requires banks and mortgage servicers to adhere to certain maintenance requirements on REOs.
Servicers that fail to comply with the state’s maintenance obligations are subject to enforcement actions and a fine of $500 per day that the law is violated.
Even though the law was implemented a year ago, a news release Thursday from the New York
Department of Financial Services said that it continues to see errors in the reporting of applicable properties to the registry. This includes incorrect properties listed and a lack of updated information on previously registered properties.
Among those companies accused of errors is PHH, which was investigated by the department and found to have
failed to maintain a property in New Lebanon, New York, for at least 238 days from the time the property was registered in the DFS registry.
So the department fined PHH $119,000.
“The fine is part of DFS’s aggressive strategy to combat the blight of vacant and abandoned properties in New York State,” the regulator said.
The department additionally issued guidance reminding lenders and servicers that they are required by law to
update the vacant and abandoned registry within 30 days of any material change to the status of a registered property.
