Fair Lending

In a significant victory in the fight for fair lending, we secured a major jury verdict against New York-based Emigrant Savings Bank and Emigrant Mortgage Company for discriminatory mortgage lending. The June 2016 liability verdict was both the first case in which a jury held a bank accountable for lending practices that contributed to the country’s 2008 financial collapse, and the first reverse redlining case ever to be tried in federal court.

In 2013, in the first reverse redlining case filed against a for-profit school in the country for engaging in deceptive practices to encourage low-income African-American students to take out large federal student loans for an education that the school knew was inadequate, the firm obtained a $5 million settlement for a class of over 4,000 members. 

On August 15, 2022, Relman Colfax filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland against real estate appraiser Shane Lanham, real estate appraisal company 20/20 Valuations, LLC, and residential mortgage lender loanDepot.com, LLC, on behalf of Baltimore homeowners Drs. Nathan Connolly and Shani Mott, alleging racial discrimination in a home appraisal.

On October 6, 2021, Relman Colfax filed a lawsuit in Indiana federal court alleging that Old National Bank engaged in lending discrimination in Indianapolis in violation of the Fair Housing Act.

Relman Colfax represents plaintiffs in this class action lawsuit against an Indianapolis realty company for operating a predatory and discriminatory rent-to-own scheme in the Indianapolis area. 

The firm represented a fair housing organization in developing initiatives with a lender that are designed to ensure that individuals who are on, or plan to be on, maternity, paternity or adoptive leave receive fair and equal access to mortgage loans.

In this groundbreaking lawsuit, Relman Colfax challenged Santander Bank's poor record of mortgage lending in minority neighborhoods in Providence, Rhode Island.