A Black couple settled their lawsuit against a real estate company which had estimated the pair’s Northern California home to be worth nearly $500,000 less than when a white friend pretended to be its owner, the plaintiff’s lawyers said.
Tenisha Tate-Austin and Paul Austin sought to refinance their mortgage in late 2020 so they brought in Janette Miller and her firm, Miller and Perotti Real Estate Appraisers, who assessed the couple’s Marin City home to be worth $995,000, according to the plaintiffs’ civil complaint.
The Black couple, believing their race played a role in the estimate, then had a different appraiser look through the home.
But this time, “the Austins erased any evidence of their racial identities inside their house, removing family photos and African-themed art” and had a white friend pose as the owner “with photos of her own family,” according to a statement by Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California which backed the couple’s lawsuit.
That second appraisal, made to the decoy white homeowner several weeks later, came in at $1,482,500, the couple claimed.
The settlement agreement “included an undisclosed monetary amount” and defendants will have to watch a documentary, “Our America: Lowballed,” attend a training session regarding the history of racial discrimination in real estate and promise “not to discriminate in the future,” according to the plaintiffs.
“Having to erase our identity to get a better appraisal was a wrenching experience,” homeowner Tenisha Tate-Austin said in a statement.
“We know of other Black families who either couldn’t get a loan because of a discriminatory appraisal and therefore either lost the opportunity to buy or sell a home, or they had to sell their home because they had an unaffordable loan.”
Miller, her attorney and representatives of Miller and Perotti Real Estate Appraisers could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday morning.
Donna Mendell contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
