Hi, I’m Adam De Sanctis with the Mortgage Minute, the latest news from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Last week, HUD released a proposed rule that would remove all references to discriminatory or disparate impact, liability from its 2013 Fair Housing Act regulations, and instead leave questions about the scope of that liability to the courts. Comments on the proposal are due February 13th of this year. HUD says several factors drove the change, including recent Trump administration executive orders, emphasizing merit-based opportunity and directing agencies to limit disparate impact enforcement. Importantly, this proposal does not eliminate disparate impact liability. The Supreme Court’s inclusive communities decision confirm that such claims are still ciz under the FHA. However, the standards and burdens of proof will be guided by that decision in future court rulings, not HUD regulations. NBA has long urge HUD to revise the 2013 rule to better align with inclusive communities. Next MBA will gather member feedback and submit a comment letter by the February 13th deadline. And finally, MBA’s IMB conference takes place in beautiful Amelia Island, Florida on February 2nd through the 4th. I’ll be there and I hope you’re joining us in a couple weeks. Register today at mba.org/imb26.
Adam DeSanctis, VP, Communications at Mortgage Bankers Association
As a strategic public affairs and communications executive with nearly two decades of experience, Adam has deep expertise in strategy, management, and media relations. He is widely regarded as an expert in a variety of communications, including advocacy, brand, executive, crisis, grassroots, and social media. In his career, he has been the MBA spokesperson on a wide variety of real estate research and advocacy-related issues, promoted MBA research and advocacy efforts to financial, political, and trade industry media and on MBA’s social media channels, and secured media opportunities for MBA leadership on key real estate trends and issues, generated media coverage for MBA’s research and data on mortgage applications, credit availability, homebuilder applications, mortgage forbearance/delinquencies, commercial real estate originations, and forecasts, and other industry analysis, developed key strategic initiatives for MBA’s organizational public affairs plan, media relations and member communications support for mPower, MBA’s Opens Doors Foundation and MBA’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs.