[Congressional Bills 114th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1799 Introduced in House (IH)]

114th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1799

To amend the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974 to prohibit 
certain financial benefits for referrals of business and to improve the 
    judicial relief for certain violations, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 15, 2015

 Mr. Ellison introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                    Committee on Financial Services

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To amend the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974 to prohibit 
certain financial benefits for referrals of business and to improve the 
    judicial relief for certain violations, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Ensure Fair Prices in Title 
Insurance Act of 2015''.

SEC. 2. AMENDMENTS TO THE REAL ESTATE SETTLEMENT PROCEDURES ACT OF 
              1974.

    The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974 (12 U.S.C. 2601 
et seq.) is amended--
            (1) in section 8--
                    (A) in subsection (c)(4)(C), by striking ``the only 
                thing of value'' and all that follows through 
                ``ownership interest or franchise relationship'' and 
                inserting the following: ``no fee, kickback, or thing 
                of value (including any return on ownership based in 
                whole or part on referrals paid for or received from an 
                affiliated business arrangement) is paid or received 
                pursuant to any agreement or understanding, oral or 
                otherwise, for referrals of business incident to or a 
                part of a real estate settlement service involving a 
                federally related mortgage loan''; and
                    (B) in subsection (d)--
                            (i) by amending paragraph (2) to read as 
                        follows:
    ``(2) Joint and Several Liability.--Any person or persons who 
violate the prohibitions or limitations of this section shall be 
jointly and severally liable as follows:
            ``(A) To the person or persons charged for the settlement 
        service involved in the violation in an amount equal to three 
        times the amount of any charge paid for such settlement 
        service.
            ``(B) Upon a finding from a court of competent jurisdiction 
        that a violation of this section occurred, to any person or 
        persons providing substantially similar services in the same 
        State where the violation occurred, in an amount equal to 
        attorneys' fees and court costs incurred in initiating an 
        action under this section.''; and
                            (ii) by adding at the end the following:
            ``(7) Additional relief.--In addition to the remedies set 
        forth in this section, a court may order one or more of the 
        following types of relief:
                    ``(A) Injunctive relief.
                    ``(B) Restitution.
                    ``(C) Other equitable relief as deemed appropriate 
                by the court.''; and
            (2) by amending section 16 to read as follows:

``SEC. 16. JURISDICTION OF COURTS.

    ``Any action pursuant to the provisions of section 6, 8, or 9 may 
be brought in the United States district court or in any other court of 
competent jurisdiction, for the district in which the property involved 
is located, or where the violation is alleged to have occurred, within 
3 years of the date of the occurrence of the violation.''.
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