Lawsuit Alleges Racial Bias in HUD Note Sale Program

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is the subject of a class action lawsuit that claims its Note Sale Program has created a disproportionately discriminatory impact on New York City’s African-American homeowners.

The lawsuit, which was filed last week by MFY Legal Services Inc. and Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP, alleges that HUD sold approximately 1,000 delinquent Federal Housing Agency (FHA) mortgages in New York City to private investors without informing the homeowners and without alerting these homeowners that they would no longer have the basic due process protections of an FHA mortgage. The lawsuit cites cases of mortgages being sold even as the homeowner was in the process of receiving a loan modification.

The lawsuit also presents data that determined the mortgages being sold off in HUD’s Note Sale Program were primarily on residences in predominantly African-American neighborhoods, particularly southeast Queens and east Brooklyn. HUD’s next Note Sale is scheduled for Sept. 14.

“Homeownership is the principal way that families of color accumulate wealth,” said Diane Houk, of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady. “It is stunning that HUD, whose mission is to affirmatively further fair housing for all Americans, would carry out a program with a disparate and destabilizing effect on African-American communities.”

Since the Note Sale Program began in 2010, HUD has sold more than 113,000 mortgages nationwide to private companies. HUD plans to conduct another Note Sale on Sept. 14, 2016.