RESPA Lawyer Blog
New Orleans, LA — Mortgage lenders, servicers, warehouse counterparties, and title insurance operators enter the second half of 2026 facing one of the most unsettled compliance landscapes in more than a decade: a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in transition, state Attorneys General stepping into federal enforcement gaps, the NAR Settlement continuing to realign broker-lender referral economics, and a new wave of servicing, fair lending, and affiliated business arrangement activity emerging across the states. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s 2026 Legal Issues and Regulatory Compliance Conference — held May 4–7, 2026, at the InterContinental Miami — is where the industry’s senior legal and compliance leaders convene to work through exactly these issues.
Marx Sterbcow, Managing Attorney of the Sterbcow Law Group, LLC, will join a panel of leading mortgage industry attorneys and compliance executives at the 2026 conference to discuss the regulatory and enforcement forces most likely to reshape lender and settlement-provider operations through the balance of the year.
Event Details
Conference: Mortgage Bankers Association 2026 Legal Issues & Regulatory Compliance Conference Dates: May 4–7, 2026 Venue: InterContinental Miami — 100 Chopin Plaza, Miami, FL 33131 Panel Title: [Session title to be confirmed pending MBA final agenda] Continuing Legal Education: CLE credit available for attending attorneys
The Panel
Mr. Sterbcow will appear alongside a roster of senior mortgage industry attorneys, title industry leadership, and federal housing-policy voices whose combined vantage point spans regulatory defense, transactional practice, title operations, and federal rulemaking:
- Charles “Chuck” Cain — Senior Vice President, National Agency, FNF Family of Companies, and Of Counsel to the Sterbcow Law Group, LLC
- Eric D. Houser, Esq. — Managing Partner, Houser LLP
- Francis X. “Trip” Riley, III — Partner and Chair, Consumer Financial Services Group, Saul Ewing
- Peter (Pete) Carroll — Executive Vice President, Public Policy and Industry Relations, Cotality (formerly CoreLogic)
The panel’s composition is unusual in its depth. Mr. Carroll previously served as Assistant Director and head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Office of Mortgage Markets, where he co-led the teams responsible for the Dodd-Frank Act mortgage rulemakings, and subsequently served as Executive Vice President at Quicken Loans (now Rocket Mortgage). Pairing that federal-rulemaker perspective with nationally recognized title industry, mortgage litigation, and regulatory-defense practitioners gives the session a perspective on both how federal mortgage rules are built and how they are applied against lenders and settlement service providers in enforcement.
MBA’s Miami program is known for its practical, operator-level orientation. Sessions are built around what in-house counsel and chief compliance officers need to operationalize on Monday morning, not around abstract regulatory debate — and that orientation is what consistently draws the industry’s most senior legal and compliance decision-makers to the conference each year.
What This Panel Will Cover — Issues Specific to Mortgage Lenders
Rather than revisit the real-estate-brokerage regulatory outlook covered in our recent NRBA 2026 preview, the Miami panel will concentrate on issues uniquely relevant to the MBA’s core audience — mortgage lenders, servicers, warehouse and correspondent counterparties, and affiliated settlement service providers. The discussion is expected to cover:
- Lender-side RESPA Section 8 risk vectors — including co-marketing agreements, desk rental arrangements, lender-exchange platforms, and captive title structures
- Servicing compliance under a transitioning CFPB — supervisory priorities in flux, recent Regulation X loss-mitigation amendments, and the state servicing acts that are filling the federal enforcement gap
- Joint venture re-papering — practical drafting and governance changes lenders should be making now in response to state AG activity on affiliated business arrangements and title joint ventures
- Fair lending and ECOA in the post-Townstone environment — what lenders should, and should not, take away from the 2025 vacatur proceedings and the Seventh Circuit’s continuing imprint on prospective-applicant analysis
- Repurchase, indemnification, and enforcement overlaps — where GSE, investor, and regulatory exposures intersect, and how lenders are hardening loan-file documentation as a result
- AI, marketing technology, and UDAAP — lender advertising risk arising from AI-generated content, automated lead platforms, and third-party co-branding relationships
- State licensing and multistate examinations — coordinated Multistate Mortgage Committee (MMC) examinations, common findings driving 2026 consent orders, and coordinated-examination defense strategy
Why the 2026 Miami Program Arrives at a Pivotal Moment
The 2026 MBA Legal Issues conference lands in the middle of the most consequential realignment of mortgage regulatory enforcement in recent memory. The CFPB’s priorities are being re-weighted by new leadership, and the Bureau’s 2025 decision to join Townstone Financial in seeking vacatur of its own stipulated final judgment — widely reported as unprecedented in the Bureau’s history — has become a reference point for every lender currently operating under, negotiating, or anticipating a CFPB consent order.
At the same time, state Attorneys General and state banking regulators have openly positioned themselves as the front-line enforcers when federal attention lapses. The District of Columbia’s enforcement sweep against title insurance joint ventures, Massachusetts’s continued focus on lender marketing practices, and the coordinated activity of the Multistate Mortgage Committee have all reshaped what lender compliance teams must monitor. The Department of Justice continues to press antitrust theories against traditional brokerage economics. Private-bar RESPA litigation, long a quieter corner of the settlement-services world, is growing more aggressive as plaintiffs’ firms test novel theories against lender-affiliated arrangements.
For mortgage legal and compliance leaders, the operational question in 2026 is no longer what will the CFPB do next. It is how do we build a compliance program resilient to a fragmented, shifting, and increasingly state-led enforcement landscape. The Miami panel is built around that question.
About the Speaker
Marx Sterbcow advises mortgage lenders, banks, title insurance agencies, real estate brokerages, and joint venture operators on RESPA, CFPB, fair lending, state Attorney General, and antitrust matters. For his full biography, notable representations, and speaking history, visit the Sterbcow Law Group firm page or follow his ongoing analysis at the RESPA Lawyer Blog.
Connect With Us in Miami
If you will be in Miami May 4–7, the Sterbcow Law Group team would welcome the chance to meet on-site. To schedule time during the conference, call 877-854-2182 or reach out through respaattorneys.com.