Race now required for mortgage modification?

Founding Ideals ^ | September 13, 2010

[quantim]

It matters to the powers at be (democrats and RINOs) can take from you $$$ and give it to someone who does not share the same pigment.

[freespirited]

That would have been in direct contradiction of the published HUD documents at the time. The preference was to ALWAYS have race/ethnicity self identified.

Right, but we were told that if we refused to do it ourselves, the law required them to do it for us.

The practice sucks.

[LADY J]

Redistribution in action!!

[alecqss]

I guess post-racial stands for everything to be racial...

[FlingWingFlyer]

“Racial profiling”!!!! Holder needs to get off his ass and sue these people!!

[longtermmemmory]

I can testify to this for some clients.

The neigborhoods with the WORST conditions get the best modifications. These were formerly the redlined areas which where high crime areas.

It also depends on the servicing agent at the other end. “profiling” works both ways. You can tell if the agent is going to be of no help by the absurdity of their suggesstions and how much they conceal the criteria.

so much for transparancy.

when one client gets a 31% of income housing payment another with the same bank and rules magically is not qualified.

[agee]

According to the HUD website;

“You aren’t required to answer (there is a box to check if you’d prefer not to), but then the loan officer has to make a guess about your origin and make a note for HUD.”

If you dig around a little more then you learn that “Supplying this information is strictly voluntary on the part of the applicant”

So if they are going to fill it in anyway, how can the information be “strictly voluntary”? Your tax dollars at work.

[freespirited]

LOL. That’s gummint-speak for ya.

[Georgia Girl 2]

As a 27 year veteran of the Mortgage Industry I can assure everyone that this language has been on the 3rd page of the standard Fannie Mae loan application form (form 1003)for at least 15 years. The purpose of the ethnic information section is supposed to keep people from being discriminated agains’t based on race or gender.

Next time you apply for a mortgage loan check it out.

[agee]

The question becomes; Can you opt out of providing that information? I was always told that was the case when I applied for a mortgage. I have also found HUD documents that say that race information is voluntary and should be “self identified”.

At the same time I’ve found several documents that say that the processor should fill the information in if it isn’t given or if the applicant chooses not to provide it. This seems to be a direct contradiction to any sort of “voluntary” aspect to providing race information.

[cpa4you]

This has been a requirement for years on regular mortgages. If the borrower failed to disclose certain racial info, the banker had to look at the borrower and answer the race based questions on the mortgage application.

[agee]

Thanks for all the feedback. I read the NRO article and took it at face value. That was a mistake. After reading comments here I went back and starting doing some more searching.

Putting more time in and a quick trip to the wayback machine confirmed instructions on form 1033 going back several years. Those instructions inform the processor to fill in race if the applicant refuses to do so. The original post has been updated and corrected - with more corrections to come.

I still find the practice insidious.

[StayoutdaBushesWay]

Beat me to it :)