The Practising Law Institute is offering a webcast of a live presentation from San Francisco entitled Helping Homeowners Facing Fair Lending Problems in Home Repairs and Improvements: Overview of Rights and Options on February 11, 2020 from 12:00 PM-7:40 PM.

Full scholarships and discounts to attend PLI programs are widely available to attorneys working in nonprofit/legal services organizations; pro bono attorneys; government attorneys; judges and judicial law clerks; law professors and law students; senior attorneys (age 65 and over); law librarians and paralegals who work for nonprofit/legal services organizations; unemployed attorneys; and others with financial hardships.

All eligible attendees are urged to complete and submit a PLI Scholarship Application.

Registration Fee: $199.00 per person

Why You Should Attend

Nationally, homeowners remain vulnerable to unfair and predatory financing abuses.  Some need to refinance an existing loan to improve their loan terms and make it more affordable.  Many need to make home repairs or decide to make energy efficient improvements, such as installing solar panels to reduce their energy bills and seek financing for that purpose.  People of color, women, immigrants, people with disabilities and other vulnerable residents who are homeowners, especially if they are seniors, find themselves targeted for abusive door-to-door sales marketing scams (including home energy scams), abusive and dangerous financing that is likely to lead to foreclosure on the family home, and shoddy work by contractors followed by unwarranted collections efforts.  This session will provide an introduction to the legal rights and options of homeowners who have been targeted for such abuses and a guide to addressing and remedying abuses using state and federal consumer and fair housing laws.

What You Will Learn

• Warning signs of fair lending problems when seeking financing
• Key legal claims that homeowners can pursue to remedy home improvement contractor and financing abuses
• Litigation and non-litigation approaches to resolving disputes, including pursuing administrative remedies with state and federal agencies like the California Department of Business Oversight and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
• Updates on recent legislative and regulatory developments and activity

Who Should Attend

Practitioners who represent homeowners as to financing, or other consumer law issues or are considering doing so.  Fair housing practitioners who want to learn to apply other consumer rights claims as well to work with vulnerable homeowners.