A federal court in Texas has dismissed a disparate-impact lawsuit against the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, finding, after years of litigation, that the plaintiff had failed to show sufficient reason for a charge of unlawful discrimination under the Fair Housing Act. The recent decision in The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. v. The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, et al., is the latest in a series of decisions applying the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that found disparate impact is a cognizable claim under the FHAct. The court’s Aug. 26 decision basically reaffirms...
Fair housing groups continue to press allegations that Bank of America has neglected foreclosed homes and created eyesores in African-American and Latino communities in more than 200 cities. The National Fair Housing Alliance, along with nine local fair housing organizations, filed an amended federal complaint against BofA last week. In the complaint they added a number of neighborhoods in six additional cities where investigations revealed foreclosed homes that have not been properly maintained. This brings...
Nonbank mortgage originators continued to feel the heat of scrutiny from the CFPB over the last year, new data show. The number of the bureau’s examinations of non-depository mortgage lenders jumped an eye-popping 220.0 percent as of June 30, 2016, compared with the mid-year mark in 2015, according to data provided exclusively to Inside the CFPB from the agency per a Freedom of Information Act request.Further, in each of the first two quarters of this year, the CFPB examined as many nonbank mortgage originators as it had for the entire second half of last year, the data show. On the other hand, nonbank servicers got a slight reprieve, with CFPB exams falling 66.7 percent year over year (YOY) and ...
Hundreds of title agents across the U.S. responded in an organized letter-writing campaign and flooded the CFPB’s inbox with negative comments about the bureau’s attempt to clarify a number of issues related to its controversial TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure Rule, otherwise known as TRID.One title insurance professional commented that the CFPB missed an opportunity to change the closing disclosure’s calculation of title fees. “Consumers around the country continue to receive inaccurate information at the closing table about their title insurance costs,” she said. “This provision of the rule defeats the bureau’s own mission to provide consumers with a better understanding of their transaction.” The title agent urged the CFPB to fix this problem immediately so consumers will have a clear ...