Cleveland Real Estate News

Yesterday the U.S. District Court dismissed Baltimore’s case against banks they said created blight by violating The Fair Housing Act (our case was dismissed months ago). I found a post from American Banker  on line, written by Jeff Horwitz  . It’s a good summary of the various municipal cases brought or being brought against some of the large players — meaning banks who hold a large number of foreclosures. 

The Baltimore decision was written in such a way as to indicate the city’s claim was too broad (vague? this is my interpretation) but that they could come back with more specific charges (that is from the article). 

Tricia Bishop of  The Baltimore Sun covers the story  and goes a bit more in depth regarding the issue of Fair Housing and Redlining. 

Here is a quote from her article on the dismissal ruling:

 The city could restrict its claims to specific damages allegedly suffered because of actual houses made vacant by Wells Fargo’s lending practices, he wrote.

“…He’s asking the city to paint with a less broad brush if it wishes to do that,” City Solicitor George Nilson summarized. Counselors plan to discuss their options, which include appealing or filing a narrowed lawsuit, as early as today, he said…”

Cleveland is supposedly appealing their ruling as well.  There are still other cases being brought by different cities.  It will be interesting to see if any of the strategies work.  The Baltimore ruling seemed to indicate that narrowing the focus of a suit could work.  We’ll see !  Peace out – 3C