Redlining Isn’t What it Used To Be
Discrimination and Bias in Residential Lending
As previously reported, in March 2025 the CFPB and Townstone Financial (Townstone) filed a joint motion with a U.S. District Court seeking to reverse the November 2024 consent order between the parties that resolved CFPB...more
This week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) released a memo to staff outlining its new supervision and enforcement priorities for 2025....more
The CFPB is rescinding its existing enforcement and supervision priority documents, according to a memo sent to bureau staff by CFPB Chief Legal Officer Mark Paoletta....more
On March 26, the CFPB, in its first press release in over 50 days, announced its intention to seek to vacate a redlining settlement previously imposed on a nonbank retail-mortgage creditor and broker based in Chicago. As...more
Saying that the bureau under the Biden Administration abused its power, the CFPB is seeking to reverse its settlement with Townstone Financial....more
On November 1, the CFPB filed a proposed stipulated final judgment and order against a nonbank retail-mortgage creditor and broker based in Chicago, which, if approved by the court, would prohibit the defendant from engaging...more
Following lengthy litigation, the CFPB is attempting to close the books on its case against Townstone Financial alleging discriminatory lending practices and redlining African American neighborhoods in Chicago....more
On October 15, the CFPB and DOJ announced an enforcement action against a mortgage company, alleging it engaged in redlining against majority-Black neighborhoods in the greater Birmingham, Alabama area. According to the...more
On October 15, 2024, the CFPB and DOJ filed a complaint and proposed consent order against the Company, alleging violations of the Fair Housing Act (FHA), Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) and its implementing Regulation B,...more
Saying that reverse redlining is a form of discrimination, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas has refused to dismiss a discrimination case alleging that Texas developer Colony Ridge specifically...more
In a recent podcast, Len and Dean discuss the June 10 article "Manufacturing Fair Lending" from National Mortgage Professional, which delves into the "Modern Theory of Redlining" introduced by bank regulators after AG...more
On July 11, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit held in Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection v. Townstone Financial, Inc., that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”) prohibits discriminatory conduct,...more
To keep you informed of recent activities, below are several of the most significant federal and state events that have influenced the Consumer Financial Services industry over the past week...more
As discussed here, on February 3, 2023, an Illinois federal court dismissed a case brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) in 2020 against Townstone Financial, Inc., a Chicago mortgage lender, for...more
As 2024 gets off the ground, federal regulators are continuing their focus on fair lending issues. In February, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) released a statement on examination principles...more
In this article, we share a timeline of our monthly "bites" for 2023 applicable to mortgage along with some additional related information. ...more
On December 8, 2023, oral arguments were held before a three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in the CFPB v. Townstone Financial case, in which the CFPB alleges that Townstone Financial, a...more
Recently the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) entered into a proposed consent order with Ameris Bank to resolve allegations of redlining from 2016 through 2021 in majority Black and Hispanic areas in the Bank’s Jacksonville,...more
On October 19, 2023, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that its Combating Redlining Initiative has resulted in over $107 million in relief for communities adversely affected by lending discrimination by mortgage...more
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a settlement agreement with Washington Trust Company, of Westerly (WTC) to resolve claims that WTC redlined majority Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Rhode Island....more
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it has entered into a settlement with American Bank of Oklahoma (ABOK) to resolve allegations that ABOK engaged in unlawful redlining in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The DOJ opened its...more
The CFPB has filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a private lawsuit brought by a group of eight Black and Hispanic plaintiffs who alleged that the named defendants, which included a...more
The CFPB has filed its opening brief in its appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from the district court’s decision in the CFPB’s enforcement action against Townstone Mortgage (Townstone). In the case,...more
On April 14, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) submitted a statement of interest to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida arguing that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act’s (ECOA) prohibition...more
On March 17, HUD announced the submission of a final rule—Reinstatement of HUD’s Discriminatory Effects Standard—which would rescind the agency’s 2020 regulation governing Fair Housing Act (FHA or the Act) disparate impact...more