The couple, who just had twins, was approved for a mortgage application and the closing of their Virginia home was scheduled.
But the couple filed a complaint with the HUD when their mortgage lender, FirstBank, allegedly denied the loan after it found out the wife was on maternity leave. The couple was notified within 24 hours of the scheduled closing.
The wife and the couple’s infant twins moved in with her parents while the husband moved to an apartment with their 3-year-old.
The HUD said according to the complaint, the lender didn’t consider the couple’s ability to make loan payments during the wife’s maternity leave, ignoring the husband’s salary and the wife’s short-term disability insurance payments.
“No qualified applicant should be denied a mortgage loan solely because they take maternity, paternity or parental leave,” said Gustavo Velasquez, HUD’s assistant secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. “HUD will continue to enforce the nation’s fair housing laws to ensure no one is illegally denied the opportunity to own a home.”
The Washington Post reported that the HUD launched 15 maternity-leave discrimination investigations this year, part of a pattern that has seen the federal agency investigate 173 allegations against lenders since 2010.
FirstBank will pay the couple $35,000. The company will also adopt a national paternal leave policy and receive annual fair housing and fair lending training.
The Fair Housing Act makes it unlawful to discriminate with the sale or rental of a dwelling on the basis of sex or familial status, including denying a mortgage loan or mortgage insurance because an applicant is pregnant or on maternity leave.
KIRO
