CFPB, DOJ Order Trident Mortgage Company to Pay More Than $22 Million for Deliberate Discrimination Against Minority Families

Settlement is the first government resolution involving illegal redlining by a nonbank mortgage lender

Washington, D.C. – Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) took action to end Trident Mortgage Company's intentional discrimination against families living in majority-minority neighborhoods in the greater Philadelphia area. That day the two agencies filed a complaint and a proposed consent order in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (No. 2:22-cv-02936), both listed on the CFPB's enforcement action page, and the Justice Department announced the agreement the same day. Each figure below names the filing it comes from. The CFPB and DOJ allege Trident redlined majority-minority neighborhoods through its marketing, sales, and hiring actions. Specifically, Trident's actions discouraged prospective applicants from applying for mortgage and refinance loans in the greater Philadelphia area's majority-minority neighborhoods. If the court entered it, the proposed consent order would require Trident to pay a $4 million civil money penalty to the CFPB (paragraph 38) and to put $18.4 million into a loan subsidy program for majority-minority neighborhoods in the Philadelphia area (paragraph 7). The Attorneys General of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware also finalized concurrent actions.

What the agencies said

"Trident illegally redlined neighborhoods in the Philadelphia area, excluding qualified families seeking to own a home," said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra. "With housing costs so high, it is critical that illegal discrimination does not put homeownership even further out of reach."

"Last fall, I announced the Department's Combatting Redlining Initiative and promised that we would mobilize resources to make fair access to credit a reality in underserved neighborhoods across our country," said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. "As demonstrated by today's historic announcement, we are increasing our coordination with federal financial regulatory agencies and state Attorneys General to combat the modern-day redlining that has unlawfully plagued communities of color."

"This settlement is a stark reminder that redlining is not a problem from a bygone era. Trident's unlawful redlining activity denied communities of color equal access to residential mortgages, stripped them of the opportunity to build wealth and devalued properties in their neighborhoods," said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. "This settlement ensures that significant lending resources will be infused into neighborhoods of color in and around Philadelphia that have historically experienced racial discrimination. Along with our federal and state law enforcement partners, we are sending a powerful message to lenders that they will be held accountable when they run afoul of our fair lending laws."

Who is Trident Mortgage Company?

Trident Mortgage Company is a limited partnership incorporated in Delaware. Trident is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fox and Roach/Trident LP, which is owned by Home Services of America, Inc. The ultimate holding company of Trident is Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.

Until it stopped accepting mortgage loan applications in 2021, Trident was a non-depository mortgage company operating in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, according to the CFPB's July 27, 2022 release. Trident's lending focus was first mortgage loans and refinancing home loans. The complaint says about 80% of Trident's mortgage application volume came from the Philadelphia Metropolitan Statistical Area (the Philadelphia MSA) from 2015 through 2019 (paragraph 15); the CFPB's release gave that period as 2015 to 2017. The Philadelphia MSA includes the cities of Philadelphia, PA, Camden, NJ, and Wilmington, DE, as well as Cecil County, Md.

What did the CFPB and DOJ allege?

The complaint describes how Trident redlined majority-minority neighborhoods in the Philadelphia MSA and actively discouraged applications from the people living in those neighborhoods. Trident's self-defined market areas included majority-minority neighborhoods. However, Trident's application data show it did not serve neighborhoods within its market areas equally. According to the complaint, only 12% of the 30,701 HMDA-reportable applications Trident generated in the Philadelphia MSA from 2015 through 2019 came from majority-minority neighborhoods (paragraph 63), even though 29% of the MSA's census tracts are majority-minority (paragraph 30). Of the mortgage loan applications Trident did receive from applicants in majority-minority neighborhoods, most of the applicants were white. In tracts where more than 80% of residents are minorities, 51% of the applications from applicants who reported their race came from white applicants, the complaint says (paragraph 66).

Trident's discriminatory actions, alleged by the CFPB and the DOJ, violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Consumer Financial Protection Act. The DOJ also alleged a violation of the Fair Housing Act. Specifically, the government's investigation uncovered a wide range of problematic conduct by Trident, such as:

• Distributing racist language and messages about certain neighborhoods: Trident's loan officers, assistants, and other employees received and distributed e-mails containing racial slurs and racist content. In addition to using racist tropes and terms, communications sent on work e-mails included content specifically related to real estate properties' locations and appraisals. The racist content also targeted the people living in majority-minority neighborhoods.   
• Avoiding sending its loan officers to market to majority-minority neighborhoods: The complaint counts 53 offices Trident operated from 2015 through 2019, all displayed on its website, and puts 51 of them in majority-white neighborhoods (paragraph 30). The other two were in neighborhoods 53% and 52% minority (paragraph 31). All 23 of its offices in the Philadelphia and Camden metropolitan divisions were in majority-white areas (paragraph 32).
• Developing marketing campaigns and advertisements that discouraged and ignored minority mortgage loan applicants: The complaint says Trident ran 15 direct mail marketing campaigns from January 2015 through May 2018 (paragraph 44), and that every one pictured only white-appearing models or white loan officers (paragraph 45). These direct mail marketing campaigns would have discouraged applicants from majority-minority neighborhoods. Additionally, Trident targeted its marketing materials to majority-white neighborhoods. Trident's open house flyers, for instance, were overwhelmingly concentrated in majority-white neighborhoods, and its online advertisements appeared for home listings overwhelmingly located in majority-white neighborhoods.

What does the order require?

Congress entrusted the CFPB to enforce the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which prohibits discrimination in any aspect of a credit transaction on a prohibited basis, including race, color, and national origin. The CFPB's release called the proposed order, if entered by the court, the Bureau's first nonbank mortgage redlining resolution. It would require Trident, among other things, to:

• Pay $18.4 million into a loan subsidy program: Paragraph 7 of the proposed consent order has Trident deposit $18.4 million to fund a loan subsidy program that increases credit in majority-minority neighborhoods. A lender it contracts with to make the loans will offer loans to qualified applicants on a more affordable basis when borrowing to purchase properties in majority-minority neighborhoods in the Philadelphia MSA. The loan subsidies can include closing cost assistance, down payment assistance, and payment of mortgage insurance premiums. Paragraph 25 requires the lender Trident contracts with to keep at least four offices in majority-minority neighborhoods of the Philadelphia MSA. These lending offices will provide similar services to those provided through Trident's offices.
• Pay a $4 million fine: Paragraph 38 of the proposed consent order sets a $4 million civil money penalty payable to the CFPB, and paragraph 40 deposits it in the Bureau's Civil Penalty Fund.
• Pay an additional $2 million: The proposed consent order sets aside $875,000 for advertising and outreach (paragraph 17), $375,000 for consumer financial education (paragraph 21) and $750,000 for community development partnerships (paragraph 30), $2 million in all, to generate applications from and serve majority-minority neighborhoods in the Philadelphia MSA.

In addition to the CFPB and DOJ's enforcement action, the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware have entered into concurrent agreements with Trident and its real estate services affiliate, Fox & Roach LP.

Where this stands now. The court entered the consent order on September 14, 2022. On May 23, 2025 the CFPB and DOJ filed an unopposed motion to terminate it, and on June 2, 2025 the court terminated the order and dismissed the case with prejudice, according to the CFPB's enforcement action page.

Read today's complaint and proposed order.

Combatting Illegal Physical and Digital Redlining

Today's action is part of a renewed effort by federal agencies to combat illegal redlining by mortgage lenders in violation of federal law. The DOJ's enforcement of fair lending laws is a priority for their Civil Rights Division, which is leading an initiative to combat redlining. In addition, the CFPB continues to issue policy guidance and monitor markets for digital redlining.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency recently proposed updated rules implementing the Community Reinvestment Act, which was passed in 1977 to combat redlining. While these rules will only impact insured banks, several states have passed similar laws that apply to nonbank mortgage lenders, which now originate the majority of mortgage loans in the United States.