By Lisa Prevost | The New York Times
Some mortgage lenders are predicting costly repercussions from last month’s Supreme Court decision upholding a longstanding legal tool for challenging housing and lending practices that have a discriminatory effect, if not an obvious discriminatory intent.
The court’s 5-4 vote supporting “disparate impact” claims under the Fair Housing Act “will promote litigation that would itself cause reputational damage, serious business disruption, and extraordinary financial expense — even when a lender eventually prevails,” said Camden R. Fine, the president and chief executive of the Independent Community Bankers of America, in a written statement.
