The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is an independent agency that enforces consumer protection laws and protects people from financial companies engaged in unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices. Since its creation, the CFPB has obtained more than $21 billion in relief for over 205 million people from companies that cheated and violated the law.
The 2008 foreclosure crisis was the key motivation for creating the CFPB. The agency has worked to address widespread problems and to promote a competitive and healthy housing market by curbing bad actors and protecting homeowners. The CFPB:
- Required mortgage companies to make sustainable mortgages and work with homeowners when they face later hardships. The CFPB issued major rules requiring mortgage companies to review homeowners for ability to repay a mortgage loan prior to making the loan and to follow new procedures to help homeowners facing financial hardships and foreclosure.
But problems with mortgages remain. Top mortgage complaints to the CFPB include:
- Foreclosure starts while homeowners seek hardship assistance and try to obtain payment arrangements.
- Barriers to making escrow payments for taxes and insurance.
- Delays and miscommunications about homeowner options after a temporary payment forbearance.
- General communication difficulties, including inability to reach company representatives, receipt of inaccurate or conflicting information, and failure to have written or phone inquiries returned.
The CFPB has taken many actions to encourage a healthy market and promote sustainable homeownership. The CFPB:
- Protected veterans and servicemembers from deceptive marketing. The Bureau brought several cases against companies for deceptively marketing loans, including refinancings, to veterans and servicemembers, such as by falsely using government logos and inaccurately representing savings on loan worksheets.
- Halted abusive mortgage collections. The CFPB also issued orders against several large companies to stop abusive mortgage servicing practices including: against Wells Fargo for improperly denying homeowners facing foreclosure the opportunity to obtain affordable payment terms; against Carrington, a company with businesses in every state, for preventing homeowners facing payment difficulties during the COVID-19 national emergency from receiving payment relief; and against Nationstar (also known as “Mr. Cooper”), at the time the nation’s largest non-bank mortgage servicer, for causing substantial harm to homeowners across the country by failing to honor agreements regarding payment arrangements after transfers of servicing, wrongfully foreclosing on homeowners during reviews for assistance, impermissibly raising homeowners permanent monthly payments, and mishandling escrows and private mortgage insurance payments.
- Moved to stop unaffordable manufactured home lending. In 2025, the CFPB sued Vanderbilt Mortgage & Finance for setting families up to fail when they borrowed money to buy a manufactured home by ignoring obvious red flags that the borrowers could not afford the loans. As a result, many families found themselves struggling to make payments and meet basic life necessities. Vanderbilt charged many borrowers additional fees and penalties when their loans became delinquent, and some eventually lost their homes. The CFPB is seeking to stop Vanderbilt’s illegal practices and obtain relief for the harmed homeowners.
- Stopped redlining and unlawful discrimination against Black and Latino/Hispanic communities. The CFPB has remained vigilant against lenders that avoid lending in minority communities. The agency settled a case against Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp. in 2024 for redlining majority Black and high-Black areas in Alabama; settled a case against Trident Mortgage in 2022 for redlining majority-minority neighborhoods in the Philadelphia metropolitan area; settled a case against Trustmark National Bank in 2021 for redlining majority Black and Latino neighborhoods in the Memphis, Tenn. metropolitan area; and settled a case against Townstone Financial in 2024 for discouraging Black mortgage applicants and applicants in majority-Black neighborhoods in the Chicago metropolitan area from applying for mortgage loans with the company. In addition, the CFPB sued Colony Ridge in 2023, bringing a case against this Texas developer for discriminatory and unfair targeting with predatory loan products of Latino consumers seeking to buy land.
- Set standards for solar and other energy efficiency home loans. The CFPB announced new rules in 2024 to protect consumers who take out solar panel loans and other home improvement loans paid back through their taxes. The regulation also ensures that the same rules apply to all mortgage lenders who make these loans.
But the CFPB continues to be targeted by companies that engage in abusive practices. Some are now calling for Congress to eliminate the CFPB and strip it of its funding.
The CFPB protects ordinary people and a fair financial marketplace. Protect the CFPB.
See all resources related to: Consumer Protection Regulation, Homeownership & Foreclosure