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As federal authorities investigate former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's controversial ties to Russia, his estranged son-in-law is accusing him of conspiring to mislead a federal bankruptcy court about real estate investments, USA Today reported. Jeffrey Yohai made the allegation on Sept. 28 in a case that centers on four troubled California real estate investments that collectively total millions of dollars. Manafort's daughter, Jessica, filed for divorce from Yohai in March. Yohai's legal declaration alleged that Manafort and other parties in the cases "have all conspired to mislead this court ... as to their true intentions and motivations." Yohai has worked in real estate in California and New York, business and court records show. Part of that work has focused on buying upscale homes in the Los Angeles area, renovating them and then marketing and reselling the properties to luxury buyers. Four of the properties he planned to redevelop now are in the bankruptcy proceedings. Manafort, his wife Kathleen and daughter Jessica, helped finance Yohai's redevelopment efforts by putting up approximately $4.2 million, bankruptcy court records show.

Wells Fargo & Co. said yesterday that it will refund a swath of fees it assessed to mortgage borrowers whose delays in completing their loan applications were primarily the bank’s fault, the Los Angeles Times reported today. As it looks to win back trust after a scandal over its sales practices, the San Francisco bank said that it will reach out to customers who paid so-called “rate-lock extension” fees from Sept. 16, 2013, through Feb. 28, 2017, and give refunds to customers who don’t think they should have paid. The fees are supposed to only be charged when borrowers fail to finish their paperwork on time and want to retain the initially quoted interest rate on their home loan. The San Francisco bank said that roughly $98 million in extension fees were assessed to about 110,000 borrowers during that period, but it thinks a substantial number of the fees were appropriately charged. The bank said that the amount to be refunded probably will be lower, as not all of the fees assessed were actually paid and some fees already have been refunded.

A bankruptcy judge who rebuked Bank of America Corp. over its “heartless” foreclosure on a California couple is not happy that the homeowners want him to erase his ruling, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The couple reached a private settlement with the bank that calls for rescinding both the $45 million penalty that Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein imposed on the lender and the scathing ruling he issued in March. “So you want me to take the injunction and tear it up and throw it out,” Judge Klein asked during a hearing yesterday in Sacramento. He then explained that if the opinion is vacated, it will be expunged from the annals of law and can’t be cited as a precedent in other foreclosure abuse cases. As one of the couple’s lawyers explained to the judge that they were very grateful for what he’d done in the case and said that approving the settlement wouldn’t take away from the message in his ruling, the wife sat in the courtroom next to her husband and cried silently. Judge Klein sent attorneys for the couple and the bank to meet privately with another judge to discuss further revising the settlement. After they spent four hours behind closed doors, the judge announced there were some unresolved issues and that they’d try to wrap it up on Oct. 18.

Ocwen Financial has reached a settlement with 10 states under which it may not acquire servicing rights for eight months but will avoid financial penalties, National Mortgage News reported. The settlement does not end the lawsuits filed in April against the West Palm Beach, Fla., company by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and 19 other states. In response, Ocwen sued the CFPB, challenging its constitutionality. Allegations that Ocwen mishandled escrow accounts were at the heart of the actions brought by the 10 states that took part in the settlement, and are the subject of the pending suits.