Judges with the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal judge’s rejection of arguments that the Federal Housing Finance Agency undercut Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac investors by giving the U.S. Treasury too much authority when it was trying to save the home-lending behemoths.
While federal law bars the city of Chicago and other local governments from slapping taxes on homes acquired by federal home mortgage lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the law does nothing to stop such cities from merely passing on those tax bills to the people who later buy the property from Fannie or Freddie, a federal appeals panel says.
The city of Chicago should not be allowed to sidestep laws barring cities from collecting taxes on real estate sold by federal mortgage lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by simply passing on the tax bills to those buying the properties from Fannie and Freddie, a federal judge has ruled.
Fannie Mae, the federally-controlled largest provider of funding for mortgage loans in the country, has sued the city of Chicago in federal court to ask a judge to halt the city’s efforts to collect real estate transfer taxes on the residential properties the agency sells. On Oct. 15, the Federal National Mortgage Association, commonly known as Fannie Mae, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the federal agency which oversees Fannie, filed its complaint in federal court in Chicago against
