New York’s financial regulator wants information from Caliber Home Loans, one of the nation’s fastest-growing mortgage firms, about its handling of distressed mortgages and origination of mortgages to borrowers with checkered credit histories, the New York Times reported on Saturday. The request for documents is an indication the New York Department of Financial Services is ratcheting up an early stage investigation into Caliber, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lone Star Funds, a large private equity firm based in Dallas. The New York regulator made the request in a letter sent a week ago to Caliber. The regulator told Caliber that it was investigating multiple complaints from consumers in New York and wanted information related to the firm’s procedures for handling distressed mortgages and foreclosures. The regulator is also asking for information about mortgages Caliber has begun writing to borrowers who have filed for bankruptcy or been foreclosed on but are repairing their credit histories. Caliber is one of the few mortgage firms that has begun making so-called nonprime loans nearly a decade after the start of the housing bust.
