Are Mortgage Closing Rules Changing in 2026? What EO 14393 and the CFPB Review Mean for Texas Borrowers

If you've seen a headline that "mortgage closing rules are changing," here's the honest version: nothing about your loan disclosures or closing timeline has changed yet. What has happened is that the federal government has started a formal review that could change two things Texas borrowers deal with on every loan: the 3-business-day Closing Disclosure waiting period and the 3-day right to cancel a refinance.

I'm Bond Peter Njoku (NMLS #2670329), a Garland-based mortgage loan officer, and I read the actual Federal Register notice rather than the summaries. Most of the coverage so far is written for lenders and compliance attorneys. This post is written for the borrower: what was signed, what the CFPB actually asked, what could change, what definitely hasn't, and the Texas-specific wrinkle almost nobody mentions.

What did Executive Order 14393 actually do?

Executive Order 14393, "Promoting Access to Mortgage Credit," was signed March 13, 2026 and published in the Federal Register on March 18. Its stated premise is that regulatory changes over the past 15 years have raised the cost of originating mortgages and pushed community banks out of home lending, reducing access to credit for some creditworthy borrowers.

Section 2 of the order tells the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to consider, as appropriate and consistent with law, several changes. The three that matter most to a homebuyer or homeowner are:

• Tailoring ability-to-repay (ATR) and Qualified Mortgage (QM) rules for smaller banks, including potentially a broader QM safe harbor for loans a bank keeps in its own portfolio.
• Replacing TRID timing rules with a "materiality-based standard" intended to keep disclosures clear while reducing closing delays.
• Exempting rate-and-term refinances, including cash-out refinances, from rescission rights.

The word that matters is "consider." An executive order can direct an agency to study and propose rules. It can't, by itself, rewrite Regulation Z or Regulation X. Those changes have to go through rulemaking.

What did the CFPB ask in its July 2026 request for information?

On July 9, 2026, the CFPB published a Request for Information Regarding Promoting Access to Mortgage Credit (Docket No. CFPB-2026-0018). Comments were due August 10, 2026. The RFI is narrower than the executive order. It covers three areas:

1. TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) requirements: the Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure, their timing, tolerances, changed circumstances, and the forms themselves.
2. The federal right of rescission on refinances and home equity loans.
3. Reverse mortgage disclosures.

It asks 22 specific questions. The ones a DFW borrower should care about:

• Whether the timing requirements raise costs or restrict credit, and whether a materiality-based standard could replace or supplement them (Question 8).
• Whether the 3-business-day post-closing rescission period, stacked on the 3-business-day pre-closing TRID wait, unduly delays refinance funding (Question 9).
• Whether tolerance thresholds should change, using transfer taxes as an example (Question 10).
• More guidance on changed circumstances when a buyer is still negotiating with the seller over who pays which costs (Question 11).
• Guidance on e-signatures and digital closings (Question 13), and construction-loan disclosures (Question 14).

One clarification, because I've seen it misreported: the RFI did not ask about ATR/QM. That item is in the executive order, but the July RFI is about disclosures, rescission, and reverse mortgages. Any ATR/QM change would come through a separate process.

What are the rules today, and what could change?

Here is the side-by-side I give clients who ask me about this:

Every row in the "status" column says the same thing in different words: nothing is final. The next step, if the CFPB moves ahead, would be a proposed rule published in the Federal Register with its own comment period. As of early October 2026, I have not seen one.

Why don't federal changes fully apply to Texas cash-out refinances?

This is the part I haven't seen in any national write-up, and it matters a lot here.

A Texas cash-out refinance is governed by Article XVI, Section 50(a)(6) of the Texas Constitution, not just by federal law. Our constitution carries its own consumer protections on home equity lending, including:

• A 12-day waiting period: the loan can't close before the 12th day after the later of your application or your receipt of the required Texas home equity notice.
• A 3-day right of rescission after closing, written directly into the constitution.
• The 80% combined loan-to-value cap and the requirement to close at the office of a lender, attorney, or title company.

If the CFPB eventually exempts cash-out refinances from the federal rescission right, a Texas 50(a)(6) borrower would still have the state constitutional rescission right. A federal regulation doesn't amend the Texas Constitution. So the "faster refinance funding" benefit in the executive order would show up mostly on rate-and-term refinances in Texas, not on cash-out loans. (I walk through the full 50(a)(6) process in my Texas cash-out refinance guide.)

How much does the current timeline actually cost a refinance?

The argument for change is real, so let's put numbers on it. On a refinance, you sign, wait 3 business days for rescission, and only then does the new loan fund and the old loan get paid off. During those days you're still paying interest on the old loan.

On a $300,000 balance at 7.40%, per-diem interest is about $61 a day ($300,000 × 7.40% ÷ 365). Three business days that stretch over a weekend can be five calendar days, roughly $300. That's not nothing, but it's also not the reason anyone should delay a decision. The bigger cost in most delayed closings I've seen comes from expired rate locks, not rescission days. If your lock is tight, read my post on what a lock extension costs versus re-locking.

What would a "materiality-based" Closing Disclosure standard mean for buyers?

Today, three kinds of changes after the initial Closing Disclosure restart the 3-business-day clock: an APR that becomes inaccurate beyond tolerance, a change in loan product, or adding a prepayment penalty. Anything else gets a corrected CD without a new wait.

A materiality-based standard could, in theory, let a closing proceed when a change is minor and the borrower clearly understands it. That could cut down on last-minute delays. The tradeoff is the one the CFPB itself flagged: you want clarity preserved. The 3-day window is also when I tell every client to compare their CD against their Loan Estimate line by line. My guide to the CD errors worth catching shows why that window has paid off for real borrowers.

A DFW borrower who asked me about this last month

A homeowner in Rowlett with about $185,000 owed on a $410,000 house called me after reading that "refinance waiting periods are going away." They wanted cash out to pay off roughly $38,000 in credit card balances and assumed they could close in two weeks.

Here's what I told them. First, nothing had changed federally. Second, even if it does, a Texas cash-out still runs on the 50(a)(6) clock: at least 12 days from the later of application or the Texas notice, and a 3-day constitutional rescission after signing. Third, at 7.40% today, the cash-out math needed to beat the blended cost of keeping their existing low-rate first lien and paying off the cards another way. We compared it against a second-lien option before deciding. They ended up keeping the first mortgage and using a fixed second lien. The timeline was never the deciding factor; the rate on the existing loan was.

What should Texas borrowers do right now?

• Plan your closing around today's rules. Build the 3-business-day CD window and, on a refinance, the rescission period into your timeline.
• Don't delay a purchase or refinance waiting for new rules. These are timing and paperwork changes, not rate, credit-score, or qualifying changes.
• On a Texas cash-out, expect the 50(a)(6) protections to stay. Federal relief won't remove the 12-day notice or the constitutional rescission right.
• Use the CD window. Whatever happens to the rule, comparing the CD to your Loan Estimate is the cheapest protection you have.

I'll update this post if the CFPB publishes a proposed rule. If you'd rather talk through your own timeline, I'm easy to reach.