{"id":657,"date":"2011-08-10T20:48:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-10T20:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/?p=657"},"modified":"2023-12-21T17:17:08","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T17:17:08","slug":"massachusetts-attorney-general-settles-lawsuit-with-subprime-mortgage-lender-requiring-115-million-of-loan-modifications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/2011\/08\/10\/massachusetts-attorney-general-settles-lawsuit-with-subprime-mortgage-lender-requiring-115-million-of-loan-modifications\/","title":{"rendered":"Massachusetts Attorney General settles lawsuit with subprime mortgage lender, requiring $115 million of loan modifications"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Attorney General Martha Coakley announced that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts settled a lawsuit with a subprime mortgage lender that originated subprime mortgages it knew were likely to fail and which not only targeted African American and Latino borrowers but gave its employees discretion to charge higher fees to such borrowers. The company will pay a penalty of almost $10 million to the Commonwealth and will direct its mortgage servicer to modify $115 million in loans either by writing down the principal balance of lowering interest rates.\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/business\/articles\/2011\/08\/10\/states_settlement_with_lender_offers_relief_to_thousands\/\" target=\"_blank\">read article<\/a>\u00a0The settlement is based on the legal ruling in the earlier case of<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/caselaw.findlaw.com\/ma-supreme-judicial-court\/1452503.html\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0Commonwealth v. Fremont Inv. &amp; Loan,\u00a0897 N.E.2d 548<\/a>\u00a0(Mass. 2008),\u00a0which held that it might violate the state consumer protection act to market mortgages that were almost certain to end in foreclosure.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"taxonomy-category wp-block-post-terms\"><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/antidiscrimination-law\/\" rel=\"tag\">Antidiscrimination Law<\/a><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__separator\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/consumer-protection\/\" rel=\"tag\">Consumer Protection<\/a><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__separator\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/fair-housing-act\/\" rel=\"tag\">Fair Housing Act<\/a><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__separator\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/mortgages\/\" rel=\"tag\">Mortgages<\/a><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__separator\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/real-estate-transactions\/\" rel=\"tag\">Real Estate Transactions<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Attorney General Martha Coakley announced that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts settled a lawsuit with a subprime mortgage lender that originated subprime mortgages it knew were likely to fail and which not only targeted African American and Latino borrowers but gave its employees discretion to charge higher fees to such borrowers. The company will pay a penalty of almost $10 million to the Commonwealth and will direct its mortgage servicer to modify $115 million in loans either by writing down the principal balance of lowering interest rates.\u00a0read article\u00a0The settlement is based on the legal ruling in the earlier case of\u00a0Commonwealth v. Fremont Inv. &amp; Loan,\u00a0897 N.E.2d 548\u00a0(Mass. 2008),\u00a0which held that it might violate the state consumer protection act to market mortgages that were almost certain to end in foreclosure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[39,9,31,34,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antidiscrimination-law","category-consumer-protection","category-fair-housing-act","category-mortgages","category-real-estate-transactions"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"jsinger","author_link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/author\/jsinger\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}