ECOA

A regulation of the U.S. government which aims to provide all legal individuals an equal opportunity to be able to apply for loans from financial institutions . The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) specifies that persons cannot be discriminated against based on determinants that are not directly related to their creditworthiness. It prohibits lenders from considering a person's color, race, national origin, sex, religion or marital status for deciding whether to approve his loan . Financial institutions cannot deny loan sanction on basis of age, so long as the person is of legal age and possesses a mental capacity to enter into the contract.

RESPA

This act was created for protection of potential homeowners so that they may become more intelligent consumers. RESPA stipulates that lenders give more amounts of information to potential borrowers at specific points during the loan settlement process. It even prohibits the parties involved from paying kickbacks to one other

Before this act came into being, it was a practice for a lender to advertise a loan at a particular interest rate subject to the borrower utilizing the lender's title insurance organization or affiliate at a highly inflated price. The affiliate would thereafter pay the lender a portion of the inflated charge in form of a kickback.