Archive

A DIFFERNT KIND OF FAIR LENDING LAWSUIT

Recently the City of Providence, Rhode Island filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Santander Bank, N.A. has discriminated against Providence’s minority communities by refusing to make prime mortgage loans available in minority neighborhoods as required under the Fair Housing Act. Providence is seeking millions in damages from Santander, Mayor Angel Taveras said, and hopes that federal regulators open investigations into potential redlining. Santander denied the allegations. Santander is owned by Spanish banking giant, Banco Santander […]

ECOA – DENIAL OF CLASS CERTIFICATION

In a recent case the Third Circuit (Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virgin Islands)held that a discrimination lawsuit cannot be certified as a class action based solely on lender pricing discretion. Rodriguez v. National City Bank, 726 F.3d 372 (3d Cir. 2013). The plaintiffs filed a class-action lawsuit against National City Bank alleging that its policy of providing pricing discretion to loan officers had a disparate impact on minority applicants because a larger percentage of […]

COLLECTING GOVERNMENT MONITORING INFORMATION

The Fourth Quarter 2013 issue of Consumer Compliance Outlook, published by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Board, contains an excellent article which reviews and compares the rules for collecting Government Monitoring Information (GMI) under Regulations B (Equal Credit Opportunity Act) and Regulation C (Home Mortgage Disclosure Act). The article is available here.

MORE FINAL REVISED RULES – REGULATIONS B, X, AND Z

On September 13 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published it latest revisions to final rules that were published last January. The 274-page final rule: Revises error resolution procedures and information requests (§§ 1024.35 and 1024.36), and loss mitigation (§ 1024.41). With respect to loss mitigation, two of the revisions concern the requirement in § 1024.41(b)(2)(i) that a servicer review a borrower’s loss mitigation application within five days and provide a notice to the borrower acknowledging […]

MOST RECENT CFPB SEMI-ANNUAL RULEMAKING AGENDA

Recently the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) published its most recent semiannual rulemaking agenda. There were no big surprises in the agenda. This article reviews three issues of concern. Integrated Disclosures and Finance Charge Rules – The biggest rules yet to be finalized are the new integrated disclosures. The disclosures include the loan estimate (that combines the early TIL disclosure and the good faith estimate) and the closing disclosure (that combines the final TIL disclosures […]