{"id":2396,"date":"2022-08-08T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-08T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deeds.com\/articles\/?p=2396"},"modified":"2024-04-25T23:18:42","modified_gmt":"2024-04-26T03:18:42","slug":"robots-against-racism-new-tech-detects-old-prejudice-in-deeds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deeds.com\/articles\/robots-against-racism-new-tech-detects-old-prejudice-in-deeds\/","title":{"rendered":"Robots Against Racism: New Tech Detects Old Prejudice in Deeds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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On July 28, 2022, Joshua Browder tweeted:<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, we are announcing a new DoNotPay product to fight institutional racism, by removing racist language from millions of original housing deeds and HOA documents\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joshua Browder is founder and CEO of DoNotPay, the \u201crobot lawyer\u201d company putting computers to work for consumer rights. DoNotPay is urging Californians to have discriminatory language removed from their property deeds and homeowners\u2019 association documents. And it\u2019s automating the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Discriminatory Housing Restrictions Violate the Law. Can They Be Deleted?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

County deed recorders\u2019 offices across the country keep real estate documents going back decades. Many of these documents have old language that bars members of particular groups from owning or occupying lots represented by deeds and developers\u2019 recorded documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u261b<\/em><\/strong> <\/strong>The impacts of unfair housing provisions on minorities has massive impacts. Home ownership enables people to build equity through the generations. Without access to real estate, people miss out on a key form of <\/em><\/strong>wealth accumulation<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prejudiced restrictions are now legally unenforceable. They\u2019ve been unenforceable since 1948, when the U.S. Supreme Court said so. When the Fair Housing Act was enacted in 1968, Congress declared racial restrictions flat-out illegal.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But little was done to root them out. After all, race-based restrictions remain in so many chains of title. Who has the authority to delete them, even when they\u2019re found? Unlike municipal zoning rules, deed restrictions can\u2019t simply be changed through policymaking. If a deed\u2019s covenants and restrictions run with the land<\/a>, removal isn\u2019t possible, right?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That view is changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

California recently adopted a new set of rules. Now, a California property owner (or anyone else) may request the removal of offensive restrictions from the county register.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As reported by Maxwell Strachan at Vice<\/em><\/a>, countless race-based restrictions exist in California county records. Now, DoNotPay has developed an automation tool that can check tens of thousands of California records. Now, the company itself as well as its customers are tracking down these clauses. If terms that violate fair housing law are detected, DoNotPay applies for their removal from the county recorder\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Parking Ticket Fighters to Anti-Discrimination Crusaders: DoNotPay Takes on the Bureaucracy. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Joshua Browder started the company as a way to fight off parking tickets. Thus the name DoNotPay. The company branched out to offer various legal protections and solutions to help people conquer everyday hassles. For Browder, a racial deed covenant is an excellent example of something that should not stand, but would be a major nuisance for the ordinary person to fix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recording offices have age-old, entrenched processes. There can be many millions of pages of property records in a single county deed registry. Immersed in the work of tracing property records back in time and automating deed-related functions, Browder\u2019s company began engaging title companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What did they uncover? Deeds that barred real estate from ever being transferred or even rented to anyone not \u201cwhite or Caucasian\u201d and that barred any residents of \u201cHindu or Asiatic\u201d descent\u2014except those present in service positions. DoNotPay can find these deed clauses even when the language is only present earlier in the chain of title. The company submits automated requests to the county recorder of deeds, so that the offending terms are removed from each document within 30 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DoNotPay is the latest company to work on the matter of digital inclusion. Others have emerged, one by one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, we reported on Notarize, the online notary company that offers free notarizations to remove racial restrictions<\/a> in Washington state, and its plan to do the same in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, and Oregon. All of these states have a process for removal, or have introduced bills addressing the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Racial Restrictions Exist Nationwide. States Are Just Now Getting to Grips With Them.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Massachusetts is looking at creating a way to remove racist deed covenants from county records. Some of these restrictive clauses date back centuries. Indeed, property records in early colonies like Massachusetts date all the way back to the early 1600s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early deed restrictions might forbid Irish or Jewish people from acquiring the land. And in numerous chains of title from the 1800s, and persisting in the records today, is language commanding that property:<\/p>\n\n\n\n