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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is taking comments until Feb. 21 on the transfer of Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act rules from the Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Dodd-Frank Act.

The transfer of RESPA rules from HUD to the CFPBwill be effective Dec. 30 under an interim final rule published in Tuesday's Federal Register.

The interim rule makes no major changes in the RESPA rules but does make a few technical changes. For example, lenders will not be required to modify existing disclosure forms (for agency identification) until the CFPB issues a final rule calling for such a change. The CFPB also will not require lenders to obtain the CFPB's written approval of changes to the RESPA-required information booklet that they are permitted to make under the rules. (Up to now, lenders have had to obtain HUD's written approval.) The bureau is also removing some provisions that repeat requirements noted in other federal statutory or regulatory provisions.

The interim rule is being issued as Regulation X in Chapter 12, part 1024 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Other rulemaking ahead will address the bureau's mortgage disclosure form, still in testing. That form will combine disclosures required under RESPA and the Truth in Lending Act into one form. Comments on that form are due today (see story).