The documents state that the CFPB and Freedom Mortgage have agreed to participate in the proposal, and that the defendants neither deny nor admit to the allegations in the complaint.
A spokesman for the liberal organization said house line The company declined to comment.
“Freedom Mortgage has repeatedly made mistakes and ignored requirements to submit accurate data that helps federal regulators maintain a fair market for home loans,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a prepared statement. “The CFPB is ensuring that Freedom Mortgage serves them well.” Pay a price for your behavior and put guardrails in place to prevent future violations. “
The case was originally filed in October 2023, when the CFPB claimed there were “widespread and significant errors” in 2020 HMDA data that Freedom submitted to the bureau in early 2021.
In December, Freedom moved to dismiss the Florida case, but Judge Donald Middlebrooks rejected the request. In April, District Judge William Matthewman ruled in favor of the Liberty group, seeking to force the CFPB to provide information on how the bureau views “the seriousness of the violation” and “what constitutes an ‘error'” ‘Violation'” message.
If the proposed settlement is not approved, the case will go to trial in July. The agreement provides for injunctive relief to prevent Freedom from continuing to violate the law in the future and requires the company to regularly review, test and correct its HMDA materials.
Freedom reported data on 700,000 closed loans and applications in 2020, of which about 400,000 were HMDA reportable loans. That’s enough to make it the third-largest U.S. mortgage lender by transaction volume, according to the CFPB.
Inside Mortgage Finance The company is estimated to have generated $11.8 billion in funding between January and March 2024, more than triple the funding during the same period in 2023.
When the errors in the 2020 data were discovered, the CFPB had entered into a consent order with Freedom to pay $1.75 million for errors in its 2019 borrower race and ethnicity data.
These are not the only recent cases involving the CFPB and Freedom. In 2023, the bureau issued orders against freedom and liberty Realty Connect Long Island, USA The alleged illegal receipt of kickbacks is the first case involving the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974 (RESPA) in six years. Freedom was ordered to pay $1.75 million in connection with the case, while Realty Connect was fined $200,000.
