The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is retracting a pandemic-era Mortgage Servicing Final Rule. Set for publication in the Federal Register, Docket No. CFPB-2025-0014, the interim final rule (IFR) rescinds the final rule “Protections for Borrowers Affected by the COVID-19 Emergency Under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), Regulation X.”
In June of 2021, the CFPB issued a rule to amend Regulation X to assist mortgage borrowers impacted by COVID-19. The rule established temporarily procedural safeguards to help ensure that borrowers have a meaningful opportunity to be reviewed for loss mitigation before the servicer can make the first notice or filing required for foreclosure on certain mortgages. In addition, the rule would temporarily permit mortgage servicers to offer certain loan modifications made available to borrowers experiencing a COVID-19-related hardship based on the evaluation of an incomplete application.
The CFPB’s “Protections for Borrowers Affected by the COVID-19 Emergency Under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), Regulation X; Rescission” will be posted in the Federal Register and is set for publication in the Federal Register on May 16, 2025. It would become effective 60 days after publication, and comments from the public will be accepted 30 days after publication.
President Joe Biden formally put an end to the COVID-19 national emergency when he signed a bipartisan congressional resolution to bring it to a close after three years on April 10, 2023—just weeks before it was set to expire. The national emergency allowed the government to respond to the virus and support the country’s economic, health and welfare systems.
“The Bureau finds that it has good cause to remove, without prior notice and comment, language relating to the COVID-19 pandemic added by the 2021 COVID RESPA Rule, as prior notice and comment is unnecessary,” states the new rule. “Both the temporary additional early intervention live contact requirements and the temporary special COVID-19 loss mitigation procedural safeguards have been sunset by their own terms, and the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency expired on May 11, 2023.”
Click here to view the CFPB’s interim rule “Protections for Borrowers Affected by the COVID-19 Emergency Under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), Regulation X; Rescission.”
