Editor’s Note: The COURT REPORT is RISMedia’s weekly look at current and upcoming lawsuits, investigations and other legal developments around real estate.
Federal judge rules Trump administration must find funding for CFPB
The Trump administration’s latest attempt to block funding and operation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) hit a roadblock on Dec. 30. Federal District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled against the administration and Acting Director Russell Vought’s argument that there is no funding for the CFPB because it draws funding from the Federal Reserve, which is currently operating at a loss. A coalition of 21 states plus the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against the administration to prevent the Bureau’s defunding.
Created in 2011 in response to the 2008 financial crisis, the CFPB is tasked with protecting consumers from predatory financial institutions and practices. Its funding structure was designed to insulate it from the political whims of congressional appropriations funding. Since taking office, the Trump administration has made moves to halt the CFPB’s operations, including layoffs (currently blocked) and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent having previously ordered a full cease of CFPB operations in February 2025.
Jackson ruled that Vought not requesting funding for the CFPB represents the latest attempt at “actively and unabashedly trying to shut the agency down again, through different means.”
Anywhere faces three lawsuits over Compass merger disclosures
The proposed billion dollar merger of Compass and Anywhere has, per a December SEC filing, been challenged in the courtroom. Anywhere stockholders have filed three different lawsuits in New York and New Jersey, claiming the joint proxy statement for the merger contains incomplete or misleading information. Plaintiffs are seeking orders for Anywhere to make corrective disclosures, injunctions to halt the merger unless additional information is provided and potential damages if the transaction proceeds, as well as reimbursement of their legal fees.
Aside from the lawsuits, other Compass and Anywhere stockholders have sent demand letters raising concerns about the disclosure of information. The merger, which would create the world’s largest residential real estate brokerage, has also garnered political antitrust concerns. A stockholder meeting about the merger is set for Wednesday, January 7.
Massachusetts judge deals blow against home equity lender Hometap in state lawsuit
In February 2025, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell filed a lawsuit against home equity investment company Hometap, which offers homeowners cash in exchange for a later payment of a percentage of the home’s future equity value. The Massachusetts’ AG’s office has argued that Hometap’s business model is a predatory one that puts homeowners at higher risk of foreclosure. While Hometap describes its product as an investment, Massachusetts maintains it is in fact an illegal reverse mortgage (which cannot be offered to a borrower under 60 in the commonwealth).
One of Hometap’s defenses is that, in 2018, it met with the attorney general’s office as well as the division of banks and neither made objections then. The lawsuit is “irreconcilably inconsistent” with that previous view and thus violates the legal principle of “estoppel” (asserting one cannot take an action contradictory to a previous agreement or implied agreement), the defendants argued. In a December 19, 2025 ruling, Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Debra Squires-Lee ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on this issue, saying estoppel does not preclude litigation in matters of protecting the public’s interest.
