Bank and Philadelphia reach $10 million settlement in redlining suit

State Issues Courts Fair Housing Act Mortgage Origination Settlement Redlining Fair Lending

On December 16, a national bank and the city of Philadelphia agreed to a $10 million settlement in a fair lending suit filed against a national bank in 2017 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The settlement resolves claims against the bank alleging violations of the Fair Housing Act, as previously covered in InfoBytes. Specifically, the city alleged that the bank engaged in discriminatory mortgage lending practices by placing minority borrowers in loans with less favorable terms than loans to similar non-minority borrowers. According to the complaint, these allegedly discriminatory loans increased foreclosure rates and resulted in falling property values, particularly in minority and low-income neighborhoods in Philadelphia. The empty properties and lower property values in turn reduced tax revenues and increased costs to the city to pay for municipal services including police, fire fighting, housing programs, and also maintenance for the growing number of empty properties. The court had previously denied the bank’s motion to dismiss, (prior InfoBytes coverage here), which argued, among other things, that the city had failed to show that the bank’s alleged lending practices were the proximate cause of the city’s harm.