On April 7, the Council for the District of Columbia unanimously passed the COVID-19 Response Supplemental Emergency Amendment Act of 2020 (“Emergency Act”) an emergency relief bill for D.C.’s residents and businesses. Title II of the Emergency Act, captioned “Business Development and Consumer Protection,” directly and dramatically affects consumer financial services operations. This legislation includes
The Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a Mortgagee Letter on April 1 with guidance spelling out how it will implement one of the key provisions of the CARES Act. The Mortgagee Letter spells out special loss mitigation options that mortgagees are required to offer to borrowers on any Federal Housing Administration Title II
On April 3, Maryland Governor Lawrence J. Hogan, Jr. issued “Executive Order No. 20-04-03-01, Amending and Restating the Order Dated March 16, 2020 Temporarily Prohibiting Evictions of Tenants Suffering Substantial Loss of Income Due to COVID-19, and Additionally Prohibiting Certain Repossessions, Stopping Initiation of Residential Mortgage Foreclosures, Prohibiting Commercial Evictions, and Allowing Suspension of Certain
On April 7, 2020, the Second Circuit added more uncertainty to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) with its decision on the meaning of an automatic telephone dialing system (“ATDS”) in Duran v. La Boom Disco, Inc. Breaking from recent Seventh and Eleventh Circuit decisions, which followed the statutory language in requiring random and
On April 3, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed the State’s 2021 Executive Budget into law, which includes a provision shortening the time period for a lawsuit to be filed on medical debt to three years. Although budgetary constraints caused by the coronavirus (“COVID-19”) pandemic have forced the State to scrap
On April 1, the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois denied a debt collector’s motion to dismiss a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act lawsuit stemming from the consumer visiting the debt collector’s online payment portal. This decision highlights the potential risks that debt collectors face in
On April 3, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals issued another emergency order extending court deadlines. A press release regarding the order can be found here. The Court’s new order delays all court deadlines for matters scheduled to occur during the emergency period between March 23, 2020 and May 1, 2020 to May
On March 31, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruled in favor of a furnisher that reporting a dispute using the Compliance Condition Code of “XB,” and updating its reporting to “XH” after completing its investigation, does not violate the Fair Debt
On April 3, Nevada released new debt collection guidance that clarified existing emergency regulations implemented in response to the coronavirus (“COVID-19”) outbreak. The Deputy Commissioner of the Nevada Department of Business & Industry recently provided some clarification concerning the Department’s March 20 notice to the collection industry.
The Department’s prior notice deemed collection agencies non-essential
The North Carolina Insurance Commissioner recently published a Frequently Asked Questions document clarifying its order, amended order, and bulletin issued over the past week, which require debt collection agencies to give North Carolina consumers the option of deferring debt payments for a period of 30 days from the due date of payment.
While