American Financial Services Ass'n v. City of Oakland

Opinion

BROWN, J.

“Predatory lending” is a term generally used to characterize a range of abusive and aggressive lending practices, including deception or fraud, charging excessive fees and interest rates, making loans without regard to a borrower’s ability to repay, or refinancing loans repeatedly over a short period of time to incur additional fees without any economic gain to the borrower. Predatory lending is most likely to occur in the rapidly growing “subprime” mortgage market, which is a market generally providing access to borrowers with impaired credit, limited income, or high debt…