Fair Lending, Fair Housing, and Equitable Housing Finance Plans

<RULE> FEDERAL HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY <CFR>12 CFR Part 1293</CFR> <RIN>RIN 2590-AB53</RIN> <SUBJECT>Fair Lending, Fair Housing, and Equitable Housing Finance Plans</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Housing Finance Agency. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule; repeal of 12 CFR part 1293. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Federal Housing Finance Agency (“FHFA” or the “Agency”) is issuing this final rule to repeal the Fair Lending, Fair Housing, and Equitable Housing Finance Plans regulation (“part 1293”). After considering public comments received in response to the proposed rule FHFA published on July 28, 2025, this final rule adopts the proposed rule without change. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The rule is effective March 9, 2026. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For technical questions, please contact Leda Bloomfield, Senior Associate Director, Office of Affordable Housing and Community Investment, (202) 649-3415, <E T="03">Leda.Bloomfield@fhfa.gov;</E> for general questions, please contact <E T="03">MediaInquiries@FHFA.gov.</E> This is not a toll-free number. The mailing address is: Federal Housing Finance Agency, 400 Seventh Street SW, Washington, DC 20219. For TTY/TRS users with hearing and speech disabilities, dial 711 and ask to be connected to any of the contact numbers above. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> FHFA adopted part 1293 in May 2024  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> to codify the Agency's fair housing and fair lending oversight of the regulated entities, the Enterprise Equitable Housing Finance Plan (EHFP or Plan) program, <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> and requirements for the Enterprise to collect a borrower's language preference and housing counseling and homeownership education information. After setting forth the purpose of part 1293, definitions, and FHFA enforcement authority in subpart A, subpart B requires the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), and the Federal Home Loan Banks (Banks) (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collectively, the “Enterprises”; the Enterprises and the Banks collectively, the “regulated entities”) to comply with fair housing and fair lending laws and with federal prohibitions against unfair or deceptive acts or practices; imposes on the board of directors of each regulated entity a duty to direct operations in conformity with such requirements and prohibitions by appropriately considering compliance with such requirements and prohibitions; reserves FHFA's right to require reports from each regulated entity; and imposes a certification obligation on the reporting regulated entity. Subpart C requires each Enterprise to adopt a triennial EHFP; addresses the contents of such Plans (including actions the Enterprise plans to take to address barriers to sustainable housing opportunities faced by one or more underserved communities), optional Enterprise annual Plan updates, and publication of Plans and updates on an Enterprise's website; addresses FHFA review of Plans once submitted; requires each Enterprise to develop and publish annual performance reports and sets forth the contents of such reports; addresses public engagement on Enterprise Plans and performance assessments; provides for FHFA publication of its annual evaluation assessing Enterprise performance; and imposes obligations related to developing and implementing Plans on Enterprise boards of directors. Subpart D obligates the Banks, beginning in February 2026, to report to FHFA on activities voluntarily undertaken to support underserved communities, and to publicly report if they had taken no such activities and do not plan to take such activities in the future. Subpart E establishes requirements for Enterprise collection of applicant and borrower language preference and whether applicants and borrowers have completed housing counseling or homeownership education and related information. FHFA was not statutorily required to adopt any provision of part 1293. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 89 FR 42768 (May 16, 2024) (Final Rule) and 88 FR 25293 (Apr. 26, 2023) (Notice of Proposed Rulemaking). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  The Equitable Housing Finance Plan program was created by FHFA, as conservator, in 2021. </FTNT> FHFA published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (proposed rule) in July 2025 to repeal part 1293  <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> after reviewing it in accordance with Executive Order (“Executive Order” or “E.O.”) 14219. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> That E.O. directed federal agencies to rescind, as appropriate, regulations determined to be inconsistent with law or certain Administration policies on how statutory authority should be administered. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> As FHFA stated in its proposed rule, Administration policy as expressed in various EOs includes “the policy to be `prudent and financially responsible in the expenditure of funds, from both public and private sources, and to alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens;' ”  <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> protect the civil rights of all Americans;  <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> terminate discriminatory and illegal preferences, programs, and activities and combat illegal private-sector diversity, equity, and inclusion preferences, policies, programs, and activities;  <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> terminate to the maximum extent allowed by law, all equity programs or action plans;  <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> and “focus enforcement resources on regulations that are squarely authorized by constitutional Federal statutes and . . . reduce regulatory burden.”  <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> Administration priorities also include “lowering the cost of housing and expanding housing supply.”  <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  90 FR 35475 (July 28, 2025). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  E.O. 14219 <E T="03">Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President's “Department of Government Efficiency” Deregulatory Initiative</E> (February 19, 2025), at 90 FR 10583 (Feb. 25, 2025). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>   <E T="03">Id.,</E> section 2(a). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  90 FR at 35476, citing E.O. 14192 (January 31, 2025), section 2, at 90 FR 9065 (Feb. 6, 2025). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>  90 FR at 35476, citing E.O. 14173 (January 21, 2025), section 2, at 90 FR 8633 (Jan. 31, 2025). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>   <E T="03">Id.</E> </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>  90 FR at 35476, citing E.O. 14151 (January 20, 2025), section 2(b)(i), at 90 FR 8339 (Jan. 29, 2025). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>10</SU>  90 FR at 35476, citing E.O. 14219 (February 19, 2025), section 1, at 90 FR 10583 (Feb. 25, 2025). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>  90 FR at 35476, citing Presidential Memorandum of January 20, 2025, at 90 FR 8245 (Jan. 28, 2025). </FTNT> Congress provided express authorities and duties for FHFA, the Banks, and the Enterprises to fulfill their public purposes in promoting access to credit throughout the nation. These include the statutory requirement to meet housing goals to serve low-income and very low-income families at 12 U.S.C. 4561 to 4564 for the Enterprises and 12 U.S.C. 1430c (implemented at 12 CFR 1281.11) for the Banks (affordable housing goals), a statutory duty imposed on the Enterprises to serve underserved markets at 12 U.S.C. 4565, and statutorily required Enterprise financial support for the Housing Trust Fund and Capital Magnet Fund at 12 U.S.C. 4567 to 4569. Upon review, FHFA believes that the regulated entities' public purpose to support access to credit in underserved markets can be accomplished effectively through administration of these statutory mandates. <SU>12</SU> <FTREF/> As a result, FHFA determined that part 1293 is not legally necessary. <FTNT> <SU>12</SU>  Members of Congress, the Regulated Entities, and industry groups also agreed with this approach during rulemaking for subpart C. </FTNT> FHFA also determined that, as a matter of policy, part 1293 could be inconsistent with Administration policies and, further, repeal would enhance the prudent and financially responsible expenditure of funds from both public and private sources; alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens; avoid confusion about roles and responsibilities relative to other agencies with primary statutory jurisdiction; avoid redundant statements about FHFA authority; and align with Administration policy. On the bases that part 1293 is unnecessary and could be inconsistent with Administration policies, and that repeal of part 1293 would further Administration policies, FHFA published the proposed rule to repeal part 1293. <SU>13</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>13</SU>  In the preamble to the NPRM, FHFA considered each substantive provision of part 1293 to assess its legal necessity or consistence with Administration policies. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Final Rule</HD> After considering the comments received in light of the bases for FHFA's decision to repeal part 1293, FHFA has determined to adopt the proposed rule without change: that is to say, this final rule repeals part 1293 in its entirety. Repeal does not change statutory requirements for the regulated entities to comply with applicable fair lending and fair housing laws, such as the Fair Housing Act, <SU>14</SU> <FTREF/> Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”), <SU>15</SU> <FTREF/> the fair housing provisions of the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992, as amended (Safety and Soundness Act), <SU>16</SU> <FTREF/> and the prohibitions on Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices (“UDAP”) under the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) Act;  <SU>17</SU> <FTREF/> and does not change Enterprise or Bank obligations to meet statutory and regu ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 36k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━