Predatory Mortgage Lending Overview

"Predatory lending" has no settled definition, and it sometimes just used very loosely to, in effect, mean lending to subprime borrowers. In some cases, entire industries have been labeled "predatory": car title loans, payday loans. Certainly there are few lenders who would agree to having the label applied to them. This article focuses on the use of term as applied to mortgage loans.Rather than define "predatory", regulators typically list a number of practices that can be considered predatory. But as the Department of Housing an Human Development points out, a simple list has its limitations: [A] list does not consider the context in which the alleged abuse has occurred. Some practices may be considered abusive in the context of high-cost subprime loans; other practices may be deemed unacceptable in all contexts; and others - while not necessarily abusive for all high cost borrowers - are abusive in the borrower's situation or because the borrower was…