Financial Services Bill Debated in Congress

I spent a decent amount of today watching the debate on the Financial Services Bill in Congress. The bill, H.R. 4173, is an omnibus bill sponsored by the Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts. While the debate was not the most substantive, the bill contains a lot of important provisions that will have an effect on the reverse mortgage industry, as well as on the lives of consumers.

One Republican from New Jersey spoke out against requiring disclosures to be translated into any language other than English, as is proposed in the bill. But his objections were besides the point-- California already requires disclosures to be delivered in languages other than English. If the borrower cannot understand the disclosure, how will they know the information in it? Disclosures in languages other than English put the borrower at risk for increased discrimination.

The Financial Services Bill is expected to come to a vote in the House tomorrow. I wrote an article on some of the issues in the bill, which can be found at Reverse Mortgage Daily.