The nation’s top consumer regulatory agency is seeking to hold a South Carolina housing finance company in contempt for moving too slowly to respond to a judge’s order that it turn over documents and audio recordings, the New York Times reported today. A federal judge on Tuesday referred the matter to a United States magistrate judge for a hearing. The unusual legal maneuver by the agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to hold National Asset Advisors and a related company in contempt shows that the agency is proceeding with an investigation into businesses associated with the sale of homes to lower-income borrowers with seller financing. The motion for contempt arises from a court battle with National Asset Advisors and Harbour Portfolio Advisors, one of the nation’s largest sellers of homes on contracts for deed — a type of seller financing usually aimed at low-income consumers who cannot qualify for conventional mortgages. The consumer bureau filed a lawsuit last year in federal court in Michigan to require Harbour Portfolio Advisors and National Asset Advisors to comply with a subpoena seeking information about Harbour’s sale of rundown homes to thousands of people in more than a dozen states.
