(CNN) – A Black couple’s lawsuit against a home appraisal company is now catching the attention of the Department of Justice.
Last week, the DOJ filed a statement of interest in the couple’s claim that the first appraiser of their Marin County home violated the Fair Housing Act. Tenisha Tate-Austin and her husband, Paul Austin, say they were victims of appraisal bias. After spending months on renovations, a White appraiser valued their home much lower than they had anticipated, the couple told CNN in December. When a White friend showed the couple’s home as her own, its appraisal rose $500,000. The new appraisal for their home was now valued at more than $1.4 million, the couple said.
The couple filed the lawsuit in December, and it underscored decades long discussions about housing discrimination, Black homeownership and racial bias. –read more–
