Housing Law Commons^™

A Herculean Leap For The Hard Case Of Post-Acquisition Claims: Interpreting Fair Housing Act Section 3604(B) After Modesto, Mary Pennisi

Fordham Urban Law Journal

On October 8, 2009, Committee Concerning Community Improvement v. City of Modesto created a split in federal circuit courts over whether FHA § 3604(b) applies to discrimination that occupants suffer after acquiring their dwelling. The question is whether the FHA only applies to discrimination in acquiring their property or afterwards as well. This Note examines the split in federal circuit courts created by Modesto. Part I examines the history of the FHA and theories of statutory interpretation. Part II discusses the split in federal authority and both sides’ interpretative methodologies and rationales. . Part III.A maintains that meaning-based and intent-based …

New York’S Fight Over Blight: The Role Of Economic Underutilization In Kaur, Kaitlyn L. Piper

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This note discusses the issues raised by the policy of seizing land through eminent domain by saying that a certain property is "blighted". The author of the note feels that blight should be limited and not merely a way of saying that economic interests of the city are better served by seizing the property through eminent domain. Part I of this Note describes the background of eminent domain and, in particular, the elimination of blight as a qualifying public use. It summarizes the history of the “public use” requirement in the federal and state context and how economic underutilization fits …

Building Policy Though Collaborative Deliberation: A Reflection On Using Lessons From Practice To Inform Responses To The Mortgage Foreclosure Crisis, Robin S. Golden

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This essay on the recent housing crisis focuses on the efficacy of using lessons learned at the local level to inform federal policy-making. The author examines the extent to which local information was utilized during the buildup to the crisis, as well as during the eventual response. The article focuses on a particular local response in New Haven, CT, the role of HUD-certified counselors, and a joint project led by the Opportunity Funding Corporation and the Yale School of Management.

Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation In Florida - Implementation Challenges For An Institutionalized Program,, Sharon Press

Faculty Scholarship

This Symposium is filled with examples from around the country of states grappling with how to respond to the economic crisis in general and the overwhelming number of mortgage foreclosure cases in particular. In Part II of this article, the author identifies the key impacts institutionalization had on implementation efforts. Part III describes the various approaches pursued to address the obstacles. In this part, the author examines in detail the development of a rule to define “appearance” at mediation because of its implications for the practice of mediation as a whole beyond merely the foreclosure context. Part IV provides the …

The Due Process Rights Of Residential Tenants In Mortgage Foreclosure Cases., Henry Rose

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

The Foreclosure Crisis In Chicago, Ilyas Lakada

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Integration Proves Elusive, Challenging Under Cha's Plan For Transformation, Sheena Payne

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Are You There, Mayor Emanuel? It's Me, Chicago Public Housing, Aileen Che

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

The Fight To Stay At Cabrini-Green, Emily Magnusen

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

It's More Than Ramps: Housing Accessibility For People With Disabilities, Kim Borowicz, Hillary Coustan

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Mortgage Foreclosures, Mortgage Morality, And Main Street: What’S Really Happening?, Jennifer M. Smith

Journal Publications

The American economy is in the tank. Millions of citizens are without jobs, overwhelmed with credit card debt, and losing their homes. The brighter side is that as a result, America has finally embraced financial reform, and the unstable economy is stabilizing marriages. Nevertheless, the United States remains in the midst of a housing crisis, and the ending remains uncertain.

There has been a media blitz about the housing crisis and Wall Street - corporate interests, but much less about the actual impact of the housing crisis on Main Street - America's working class people and small business owners. This …

A Conversation With President Obama: A Dialogue About Poverty, Race, And Class In Black America, Joseph Karl Grant

Journal Publications

The date is November 13, 2012.1 Just mere days ago, I received the invitation of a lifetime. Last night, I arrived in Washington, D.C. I am staying in the Hay-Adams Hotel on the third floor. I still cannot believe the extent of my life's journey. I have just been summoned to the White House by second term President-elect Barack Obama, who defeated Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for President on November 6, 2012. The 2012 Presidential Election was a hard-fought battle between Barack Obama on the Democratic side, and Mitt Romney on Republican side. The election was a like the …

The Iqbal Effect: The Impact Of New Pleading Standards In Employment And Housing Discrimination Litigation, Raymond H. Brescia

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Protecting The Right To Choose: Regulating Conscience Clauses In The Face Of Moral Obligation, Huseina Sulaimanee

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Rise And Fall Of The Implied Warranty Of Habitability, David A. Super

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Growing concern about poverty in the late 1960s produced two sweeping legal revolutions. One gave welfare recipients rights against arbitrary eligibility rules and benefit terminations. The other gave low-income tenants recourse when landlords failed to repair their homes. The 1996 welfare law exposed the welfare rights revolution's frailty. Little noticed by legal scholars, the tenants' rights revolution also has failed, and for broadly similar reasons.

Withholding rent deliberately to challenge landlords' failure to repair is unduly risky for most tenants in ill-maintained dwellings: either moving to better housing is a better option or the risk of retaliation is too great. …

The Last Plank: Rethinking Public And Private Power To Advance Fair Housing, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

The persistence of housing discrimination more than forty years after the passage of the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA) of 1968 is among the most intractable civil rights puzzle. For the most part, this puzzle is not doctrinal: the Supreme Court has interpreted the FHA only a handful of times over the last two decades – a marked contrast to frequent doctrinal contestations over the statutory scope and constitutionality of federal laws governing employment discrimination and voting rights. Instead, the central puzzle is the inefficacy of the FHA's enforcement regime given that, in formal terms, the regime is the strongest …

Towards A Convention For The International Sale Of Real Property: Challenges, Commonalities, And Possibilities, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

In a world that is increasingly global in scope, society has come to view the ever-growing body of international commercial laws as being exceptionally important. This is evidenced through the adoption of several high profile pieces of legislation over the past several decades: International Interest in Mobile Equipment - Study LXXI, the EU’s Draft Common Frame of Reference, the EU Directives on Consumer Protection, and, most noteworthy of all, the Convention for the International Sale of Goods (CISG).

As raised by Professors Sprankling, Coletta, and Mirow, what has been conspicuously absent from this growing body of laws is an international …

The Trillion Dollar Problem Of Underwater Homeowners: Avoiding A New Surge Of Foreclosures By Encouraging Principal-Reducing Loan Modifications, Gregory S. Crespi

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

There are currently well over ten million underwater homeowners whose mortgage obligations exceed the current value of their houses, with an aggregate negative equity position of at least $800 billion and possibly over $1 trillion. The overwhelming majority of these persons continue to make their mortgage payments even though for many their interests would be better served by defaulting. This is therefore an unstable situation that could suddenly erupt with a rapid cascade of millions of strategic defaults, potentially triggering severe macroeconomic dislocations. It is urgent that this situation be defused through the modification of the mortgages of a large …

Mortgage Modification And Strategic Behavior: A Contrarian Reading Of The Countrywide Financial Corporation Settlement, Gregory S. Crespi

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Christopher Mayer, Edward Morrison, Thomas Piskorski and Arpit Gupta of Columbia University have recently published in the Law and Finance eJournal a comprehensive study demonstrating the significant impacts on strategic default rates of the widely publicized Countrywide Financial Corporation settlement of 2008. While their study is a solid and convincing descriptive effort, their implicit assumption that strategic defaults are something to be discouraged rather than encouraged, a position that I have criticized in my earlier work, undercuts the usefulness of their work for policy guidance. From their perspective the Countrywide settlement provides a cautionary tale about difficult trade-offs to be …

Mortgage Modification And Strategic Behavior: A Contrarian Interpretation Of The Countrywide Financial Corporation Settlement, Gregory S. Crespi

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Christopher Mayer, Edward Morrison, Thomas Piskorski and Arpit Gupta of Columbia University have recently published in the Law and Finance eJournal a comprehensive study demonstrating the significant impacts on strategic default rates of the widely publicized Countrywide Financial Corporation settlement of 2008. While their study is comprehensive and carefully done, their implicit assumption that strategic defaults are something to be discouraged rather than encouraged, a position that I have criticized in my earlier work, undercuts the usefulness of their work for policy guidance. From their perspective the Countrywide settlement provides a cautionary tale about difficult trade-offs to be faced in …