A Win for Couple Who Alleged Racial Bias in Home Valuation

A Black couple who said the value of their California home increased by almost $500,000 when they had a white friend stand in as the owner have settled a lawsuit with the appraisal company. Paul Austin and Tenisha Tate-Austin of the San Francisco suburb of Marin City will receive "an undisclosed monetary amount," while the defendants from firm Miller & Perotti and appraisal management company AMC Links must watch an ABC documentary about the lowballing of Black-owned properties, attend a training session on the history of racial discrimination in real estate, and promise "not to discriminate in the future," the plaintiffs said, per NBC News. The appraisers don't have to admit liability, per the BBC.

The couple were looking to refinance their mortgage amid historically low interest rates in 2020 when appraiser Janette Miller valued their home—in a city where 38% of the population is African American, per the BBC—at $995,000, much lower than the couple expected. A year earlier, the same home had been appraised for $1,450,000. Weeks later, the couple asked a different appraiser to assess the home, but only after concealing "evidence of their racial identities," including family photos, said Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California, which backed the lawsuit, per NBC. The couple also had a white friend stand in as the owner. This time the appraisal was for $1,482,500, according to the suit.

"We've been hearing that Black homeowners have been doing this for years," FHANC attorney Julia Howard-Gibbon tells NBC. "Even decades after the Fair Housing Act of 1968 we still find evidence of housing discrimination fairly often." Tate-Austin says "having to erase our identity to get a better appraisal was a wrenching experience" and one that cost the couple financially, as interest rates increased following the first appraisal. But other Black families have "lost the opportunity to buy or sell a home ... because of a discriminatory appraisal," she continues, per CBS News, adding her hope that with the settlement, "we can help change the way the appraisal industry operates." The White House released an action plan to address racial bias in home valuations last year. (More racial discrimination stories.)