Cordray: Difference between QM safe harbor, rebuttable presumption is ‘overstated’

CFPB Director Richard Cordray told U.S. House Financial Services lawmakers his agency is working to ensure rules implementing Dodd-Frank’s ability-to-repay provisions include a sufficiently broad bright line qualified mortgage standard. However, he indicated the heated debate over whether the final rule should afford lenders a safe harbor or a rebuttable presumption of compliance rests on a somewhat illusory distinction between those two policy options.