**(a)** The Congress finds that significant reforms in the real estate settlement process are needed to insure that consumers throughout the Nation are provided with greater and more timely information on the nature and costs of the settlement process and are protected from unnecessarily high settlement charges caused by certain abusive practices that have developed in some areas of the country. The Congress also finds that it has been over two years since the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs submitted their joint report to the Congress on “Mortgage Settlement Costs” and that the time has come for the recommendations for Federal legislative action made in that report to be implemented.
**(b)** It is the purpose of this chapter to effect certain changes in the settlement process for residential real estate that will result—
(1) in more effective advance disclosure to home buyers and sellers of settlement costs;
(2) in the elimination of kickbacks or referral fees that tend to increase unnecessarily the costs of certain settlement services;
(3) in a reduction in the amounts home buyers are required to place in escrow accounts established to insure the payment of real estate taxes and insurance; and
(4) in significant reform and modernization of local recordkeeping of land title information.
File SHA-256: ef65647d1fff22322503a97c6bac2dfe846ec82ec36d7acd9173b0e1c68b596e. The original may include catalog metadata, neighboring provisions, or embedded records outside this collection's scope. This page displays the selected federal record. Historical editions and unverified snapshots are not a statement of current law.
Authority boundary: historical or unconfirmed source not current law verified.
Stable record: federal_law:legal_authorities:record_usc_09a7b06aac64d4dc993900db Source file: Laws/federal/codes/united-states-code/title-12/section-2601-congressional-findings-and-purpose--6c8f558d64.md Pages: Not recorded – Not recorded Passage SHA-256: ae258938946408e9bd83d9e8934cb890c33522bede13aab5ac6100cf78c02e63 Retained source evidence SHA-256: ef65647d1fff22322503a97c6bac2dfe846ec82ec36d7acd9173b0e1c68b596e
Source location: Title 12, Chapter 27, § 2601; chapter-027-real-estate-settlement-procedures.md
Stored source content
**(a)** The Congress finds that significant reforms in the real estate settlement process are needed to insure that consumers throughout the Nation are provided with greater and more timely information on the nature and costs of the settlement process and are protected from unnecessarily high settlement charges caused by certain abusive practices that have developed in some areas of the country. The Congress also finds that it has been over two years since the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs submitted their joint report to the Congress on “Mortgage Settlement Costs” and that the time has come for the recommendations for Federal legislative action made in that report to be implemented.
**(b)** It is the purpose of this chapter to effect certain changes in the settlement process for residential real estate that will result—
(1) in more effective advance disclosure to home buyers and sellers of settlement costs;
(2) in the elimination of kickbacks or referral fees that tend to increase unnecessarily the costs of certain settlement services;
(3) in a reduction in the amounts home buyers are required to place in escrow accounts established to insure the payment of real estate taxes and insurance; and
(4) in significant reform and modernization of local recordkeeping of land title information.
Cross-references
Connections may be documented source relationships, shared citations or nearby passages. Each explains its basis; a connection alone does not establish applicability to your situation.
Federal law — U.S. Code and appendices · legal_authorities
§ 2601. Congressional findings and purpose
(a) The Congress finds that significant reforms
in the real estate settlement process are needed
to insure that consumers throughout the Nation
are provided with greater and more timely infor-
mation on the nature and costs of the settle-
ment process and are protected from unneces-
sarily high settlement charges caused by certain
abusive practices that have developed in some
areas of the country. The Congress also finds
that it has been over two years since the Sec-
retary of Housing and Urban Development and
the Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs sub-
mitted their joint report to the Congress on
‘‘Mortgage Settlement Costs’’ and that the time
has come for the recommendations for Federal
legislative action made in that report to be im-
plemented.
(b) It is the purpose of this chapter to effect
certain changes in the settlement process for
residential real estate that will result—
(1) in more effective advance disclosure to
home buyers and sellers of settlement costs;
(2) in the elimination of kickbacks or refer-
ral fees that tend to increase unnecessarily
the costs of certain settlement services;
(3) in a reduction in the amounts home buy-
ers are required to place in escrow accounts
established to insure the payment of real es-
tate taxes and insurance; and
(4) in significant reform and modernization
of local recordkeeping of land title informa-
tion.
(Pub. L. 93–533, § 2, Dec. 22, 1974, 88 Stat. 1724.)
Editorial Notes
REFERENCES IN TEXT
This chapter, referred to in subsec. (b), was in the
original ‘‘this Act’’, meaning Pub. L. 93–533, Dec. 22,
1974, 88 Stat. 1724, known as the Real Estate Settlement
Procedures Act of 1974, which is classified principally
to this chapter (§ 2601 et seq.). For com