Philadelphia Ordinance An ordinance banning predatory lending, banning public investment in predatory lenders, and requiring loan counseling for borrowers of high-cost loans was passed by the unanimous vote of the Philadelphia City Council in April 2001. It was overturned by state legislation in June 2001.
A working reseach paper looked into loan laws: "State and Local Anti-Predatory Lending Laws: The Effect of Legal Enforcement Mechanisms" http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1005423 Very detailed analysis shows that laws have some effect, but do NOT drive out supply. North Carolina's tough law did not reduce supply overall, for people under 50K, yes it did, for people over 50K income, supply went up.
There was a story in WSJ last month about parties to blame for the loan mess. A few members of Congress tried for some regulation of mortgage industry as did some states. The housing lobby killed all bills and the one that did pass in one state, the lending industy BLACKMAILED the state to repeal the bill. So, this bill may be junk, but it happened becuase the lobby killed good bills years back. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120406115972594515.html
GA had the tough anti-predatory law that would place buyer of predatory loan at risk (aks stolen property) and S&P and Fitch blackmailed the state so they watered it down. Funny how S&P and Fitch were WHOLLY resposible for this subprime mess, yet they interefered with state law that would likely have reduced the mess in the first place. http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2008/01/regulatory-neglect-and-subprime.html
