At the request of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Department of Justice (DOJ), a U.S. district court agreed to the early termination of a 2022 consent order settling redlining allegations against a mortgage company owned by Berkshire Hathaway. The DOJ said at the time the consent order was the first redlining settlement the department reached with a non-bank lender and the second largest in its history.
District of Columbia Attorney General Brain Schwalb secured a consent order resolving allegations that William C. Smith & Co., Inc. conspired with 13 other landlords to inflate rents of apartment units by using software from RealPage, Inc.
In a letter to Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, the American Bankers Association recommended the agency rescind its current disparate impact rule and go back to a version introduced in 2020. Debate over the rule has been ongoing since the rule was first issued in 2013.
The volume of guidance withdrawn by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in May has raised many eyebrows among regulators, attorneys and financial professionals. One of the most notable examples is an interpretive rule concerning states’ ability to enforce federal consumer protection laws.
The U.S. Department of Justice obtained a default judgment against three California men who worked at or owned a rental property and were accused of sexually harassing a female tenant and of retaliation in violation of the Fair Housing Act.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Department of Justice filed a motion in U.S. District Court to terminate a 2021 consent order with a Jacksonville, Miss., lender which was accused of redlining. The order was scheduled to expire in October 2026.
The Civil Rights Division of the Arizona Attorney General’s office secured a consent decree resolving a complaint against a Flagstaff, Ariz., property management company accused of housing discrimination and retaliation against a tenant who needed an assistance animal for a disability.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown announced three housing discrimination settlements have recently been issued by the civil rights division, saying his office is dedicated to the vigorous enforcement of fair housing laws, even as federal agencies appear to have abandoned such initiatives.
Following the withdrawal of the long-awaited 2023 final rule revising Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) standards, financial institutions will experience no change in federal CRA standards. However, some states are working on tightening their own regulations. A panel of experts discusses the best practices in CRA benchmarking.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed an interim final rule that will rescind the 2021 final rule, “Protections for Borrowers Affected by the COVID-19 Emergency Under RESPA, Regulation X.”
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