Fair Housing Act

The Justice Department, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three state attorneys general alleged that Trident Mortgage, a lender owned by Berkshire Hathaway, engaged in redlining and discrimination in the Philadelphia area.

Agencies supervising lenders should make it clear that the transition to less discriminatory algorithms won’t be used to punish banks for their previous use of older, less effective systems.

The accord resolves a lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development alleging that the algorithms used in Meta’s advertising systems allowed marketers to violate fair housing laws by limiting or blocking certain groups of people from seeing housing ads on the service. 

Secret test scenarios last year found a loan originator providing fewer options and services on multiple occasions to Black borrowers compared to white customers.

In late July, the Justice Department notified the Houston bank of a potential lawsuit alleging violations between 2013 and 2017, according to a securities filing. Cadence said that its prospective merger partner, BancorpSouth, supports the settlement discussions.

The 2013 rule, which was weakened under the Trump administration, established a comparatively low bar for plaintiffs alleging discrimination.

With the Biden administration signaling that it will prioritize enforcement of federal rules around discriminatory lending, many mortgage firms don't have internal measures in place to ensure compliance of them, writes the internal audit manager of Mortgage Quality Management and Research.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development reinstituted the “affirmatively furthering fair housing" measure, which the Trump administration had argued was overly prescriptive, and promised a later rulemaking to bolster the policy.

Housing experts and advocates disagree on the biggest factor in advancing the Black homeownership rate — and that's part of the problem.

There is a persistent undersupply of moderately-priced homes, which continues to push affordability and the dream of homeownership further into the future for millions of potential first-time minority homeowners, writes the president of mortgage for Radian Group Inc.

The complaint exemplifies the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s focus on “fair servicing” in addition to fair lending.

Given the Biden Administration’s regulatory emphasis on the disparate impact of mortgage lender activity on protected classes, originators need to carefully monitor their loan price concessions, according to industry speakers at the Mortgage Bankers Association's Spring Conference.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development will revive a 2013 rule that makes lenders liable for practices that were unintentionally discriminatory as well as 2015 guidelines for how local jurisdictions comply with the Fair Housing Act.

The complaint alleged the bank discriminated by refusing to make a mortgage loan after learning it would be used to finance a group home for disabled people.

State financial regulators cited Buffalo-based Hunt Mortgage Corp. on Thursday for weakness in lending to minorities and minority neighborhoods, as they released a report finding an overall lack of lending by nonbank mortgage companies in Buffalo despite laws banning the practice of redlining.

After the agency pulled back on fair-lending enforcement in the Trump administration, interim Director Dave Uejio has made clear his intent to use the “disparate impact” standard to launch more anti-discrimination probes.

The president’s executive action looks to assess the impact of the previous administration's alterations to the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing and Disparate Impact rules, while reinforcing Biden’s vow to eliminate discriminatory lending practices.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's overhaul of its Qualified Mortgage standard is alarming free-market advocates who say it will precipitate a return to easy credit and higher defaults and could disproportionately harm minorities.

The bar to prove discriminatory patterns is so high that plaintiffs would have slim odds of winning lawsuits against housing providers.

The class-action lawsuit claims the company used deceptive contracts, locking low-income Black homebuyers into disadvantageous long-term mortgages without proper lending disclosures.