On September 9, 2026, Relman Colfax, serving as outside counsel alongside the State of Minnesota by its Attorney General, Keith Ellison, filed a lawsuit against C4D, LLC, Five Points Properties, LLC, Travis Benoit, and Steven Legatt alleging the businesses and their owners targeted Minnesota’s Somali Muslim community with highly abusive and deceptive contracts for deed.
The lawsuit alleges that the C4D Defendants’ scheme continues a long history of predatory contract for deed practices that were often targeted at communities of color, denying homeowners of color the same opportunity as white homeowners to accumulate wealth through home ownership. In contrast to “redlining,” which is the practice of denying quality credit products to a community because of the racial, ethnic, or religious composition of the area or applicant pool, reverse redlining involves the targeting of a community for the marketing of deceptive, predatory, or otherwise deleterious lending practices because of its racial, ethnic, or religious composition. The lawsuit alleges that the C4D Defendants have reversed redlined the Somali Muslim community in Minnesota using a single predatory innovation: they exploit the religious convictions of their victims.
Many members of the Somali Muslim community in Minnesota observe religious principles that forbid them to charge or pay interest and late fees. As a result, they are unable to obtain conventional mortgages, both because they cannot pay interest due to their religious beliefs and because, for the same reason, they have not built up the standard credit history required to obtain conventional mortgages.
The complaint alleges that the C4D Defendants use this religious conviction against these customers, marketing the C4D contracts for deed as “no credit score required,” purporting to be endorsed by local imams, and claiming, falsely, that their contracts for deed do not charge interest and late fees.
The C4D Defendants purport to be a “trusted partner for the Somali and Muslim communities,” and presents their contracts for deed as an effective “trusted alternative” path to home ownership for people who have historically been shut out of the conventional mortgage market due to religious beliefs or lack of credit history. The complaint alleges that, using the promises of home ownership and financing consistent with Islamic religious practices, the C4D Defendants lure their victims, who are almost exclusively members of the Somali Muslim community, into contracts for deed with inflated prices and exorbitant finance charges.
But the promise is a false one, it is alleged. Due to the extortionate costs, undisclosed fees, deceptive contracting practices, and abusive terms, an extraordinary percentage of the C4D
Defendants’ purchasers can neither keep up with contract payments nor refinance. And because the C4D Defendants misrepresent and/or fail to disclose key terms, unsuspecting purchasers are often unaware of or unclear about their obligations and risks until it is too late. When purchasers cannot keep up with the required payments, they can suddenly lose everything.
The C4D Defendants, on the other hand, reap all the profits, the complaint alleges. Under the terms of their contracts for deed, the C4D Defendants retain the purchasers’ entire investment (including substantial down payments, all monthly payments, all the accumulated equity, and any improvements), plus the home, which they can then resell.
The complaint alleges that, through seller-financed contracts for deed, C4D imposes excessive finance charges and other fees on contract for deed purchasers. Many of these charges are never disclosed or are actively misrepresented to customers, making it effectively impossible for would-be customers to assess just how expensive these transactions are. In the vast majority of contracts for deed by which the C4D Defendants sold properties, the amount financed was far greater than the fair market value of the home purchased, sometimes by multiples, and the down payments far exceeded 20% of the real value of the homes. In fact, most purchasers had negative equity in their homes–meaning they owed more to the C4D Defendants than the homes were worth–the moment they entered into the agreements.
The natural consequence of these extraordinarily high finance charges and undisclosed fees is that the C4D Defendants’ contracts fail at an extraordinary rate: the complaint alleges that the C4D Defendants’ own data shows that its contracts fail at a rate more than 20 times the national foreclosure rate.
The complaint also alleges that from its inception, C4D’s predatory business scheme has had one target: Minnesota’s Somali Muslim community.
The C4D Defendants exclusively market to this community. For example, they identified this community on their website and in their marketing materials, which featured distinguished members of the community, including a local imam and popular Somali singer; hired members of this community to refer and liaise with clients; and tailored their allegedly false representations to the community’s religious convictions.
Filed in the state’s Fourth Judicial District, the complaint alleges the Defendants’s reverse redlining practices violate the Minnesota Human Rights Act, Minn. Stat. § 363A.09, and the federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1691 et seq. In addition to reverse redlining, the C4D Defendants are alleged to also independently violate Minnesota’s Prevention of Consumer Fraud Act, Minn. Stat. § 325F.68 et seq., Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act, Minn. Stat. § 325D.43 et seq., and Minnesota contract for deed disclosure requirements, Minn. Stat. § 559A.01 et seq., as well as the federal Truth in Lending Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1601 et seq., and Consumer Financial Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.
The State, by its Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Relman Colfax, bring this lawsuit forward to enforce the laws protecting consumers in the residential housing and credit market and to enjoin the C4D Defendants’ violations, secure penalties for their violations, and obtain monetary relief for their victims.
The Relman Colfax team consists of Zoila Hinson, Valerie Comenencia Ortiz, Tim Lambert, and Nick Abbott, with paralegal assistance from Muna Mohamed and Autumn Zhou.