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Issue
Predatory mortgage lending, as the name implies, is the practice whereby lenders offer unsuspecting homeowners loans with high interest rates and fees. Predatory practices vary from community to community. Usually lenders or mortgage brokers: charge borrowers excessive, often hidden fees; successively refinance loans (i.e., flipping) at no benefit to the borrower; make loans without regard to a borrower's ability to repay; and engage in high pressure sales tactics or outright fraud and deception. The population groups that are most affected by these practices include the elderly and low income individuals, African Americans and other minorities.
Background
Predatory lending has received considerable attention in the news media, largely because of the efforts of local and national community and consumer organizations. In response, high profile enforcement actions were taken against some of the more notorious predators and several states have adopted new consumer protection measures. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have all used their regulatory authority to bring additional homeowners under existing consumer protections and to gather more and better data about these practices.
USCCB Position
Cardinal McCarrick has written to Congress on behalf of the USCCB insisting, Efforts to revitalize neighborhoods and to expand homeownership among low income families are being threatened by abusive lending practices. These practices, termed predatory lending, trap far too many unsophisticated and vulnerable people, often the elderly, into high cost loans that frequently lead to foreclosure after stripping any equity from the home. The Catechism of the Catholic Church condemns this sort of speculation, this usury, as morally illicit. (2409)
What You Can Do
- Contact your Representative and Senators and urge them to support laws that would tighten the definition of "high cost" mortgages and would give people who borrow under such conditions additional protections.
- Urge then also to oppose any federal preemption of state and local anti-predatory lending laws.
For More Information
Thom Shellabarger at the USCCB, 202 541 3189 or tshellabarger@usccb.org www.usccb.org/sdwp