The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has fined Bank of America $7,500 after it refused to provide a lesbian couple with a mortgage loan because they were not married.

Bank of America employees had originally told the couple they would qualify for a government backed loan if one of the women and her partner’s mother signed for the loan.

However the day before they were supposed to settle the arrangement with the bank they were told that Bank of America could not consider the signers to be legally related because the couple were not married.