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Best v Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC
BEST v. OCWEN LOAN SERVICING, LLC, 2021 WL 2024716 (Cal Court of Appeal, May 21, 2021), appeal E074386, certified for partial publication: Finding that prior authority to the contrary had been overruled by subsequent United States Supreme Court and state court decisions, a California Court of Appeal recently held that California’s Rosenthal Act (similar to but broader than the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA)) can apply to a nonjudicial foreclosure. Best v Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC,.
Biden Administration Urges Supreme Court to Pass on Student-Loan Bankruptcy Case
Justice Department says Texas woman’s appeal is premature because Department of Education is reviewing whether to relax rules governing student debt in bankruptcy proceedings The Biden administration wants the Supreme Court to pass on an appeal seeking to ease the way for more borrowers to erase their student-loan debt in bankruptcy, saying the Department of Education is already examining the issue. The reasoning was laid out in a court filing Friday by the Justice Department, representing the latest front in efforts from the White House, Congressional Democrats and the U.S. court system to address student-loan debt. An estimated 43 million…
CFPB Sends Notification Letters To Landlords Regarding COVID-19 Evictions
On May 3, 2021, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent notification letters reminding the nation’s largest apartment landlords of federal protections in place to keep tenants in their homes and stop the spread of COVID-19. The Notification Letter points to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) eviction moratorium for non-payment of rent (CDC Moratorium), which the CDC extended through June 30, 2021, as well as recent guidance from the CFPB and FTC in support of the CDC Moratorium. The Notification Letter also provides an overview of the CFPB’s final rule, effective May…
Analysis: Is the U.S. Student Loan Program Facing a $500 Billion Hole? One Banker Thinks So
In 2018, Betsy DeVos, then U.S. education secretary, called JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon for help. Repayments on federal student loans had come in persistently below projections. Did Dimon know someone who could sort through the finances to determine just how much trouble borrowers were in? Months later, Jeff Courtney, a former JPMorgan executive, arrived in Washington. And that’s when the trouble started, according to an analysis in the Wall Street Journal. According to a report he later produced, over three decades Congress, various administrations and federal watchdogs had systematically made the student loan program look profitable…
U.S. Supreme Court Overturns $1.3 Billion Award Against Kansas Payday Loan Operator
A unanimous Supreme Court on Thursday cut back the Federal Trade Commission’s authority to recover ill-gotten gains, overturning a nearly $1.3 billion award against a professional race car driver who was convicted of cheating consumers through his payday loan businesses. The high court’s ruling takes away what the FTC has called “one of its most important and effective enforcement tools,” used in recouping billions of dollars over the past decade. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in his opinion for the court that the provision of federal law that the FTC has relied on does not authorize the commission to seek or…
Older Americans Dealing with Rising Debt, Falling Income Amid Pandemic
According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, the share of households headed by someone 55 or older with debt — from credit cards, mortgages, medical bills and student loans — increased to 68.4 percent in 2019, from 53.8 percent in 1992. Bankruptcy rates among older adults are also rising. The COVID-19 pandemic may be adding to their woes, the New York Times reported. A survey at the end of 2020 by Clever, an online service that connects home buyers and sellers with real estate agents, found that on average, retirees had doubled their non-mortgage debt in 2020 — to $19,200.…
The $50 Billion Race to Save America’s Renters from Eviction (While Violating Rights of America’s Landlords)
The Biden administration again extended a federal moratorium on evictions last week, but conflicting court rulings on whether the ban is legal, plus the difficulty of rolling out nearly $50 billion in federal aid, mean the country’s reckoning with its eviction crisis may come sooner than expected, the Washington Post reported. The year-old federal moratorium — which has now been extended through June 30 — has probably kept hundreds of thousands or millions of people from being evicted from their apartments and homes. More than 10 million Americans are behind on rent, according to Moody’s, easily topping the 7 million…
CFPB Proposes Delaying Implementation of Debt-Collection Rules
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau yesterday proposed postponing the implementation of two new Fair Debt Collection Practices Act rules governing borrower communication, which currently have a Nov. 30 start date, the American Banker reported. One rule delineates what constitutes harassment, false representation and unfair practices by debt collectors. The other clarifies the disclosures collectors must provide to consumers regarding communication with credit-reporting agencies and prohibits collectors from threatening to sue borrowers with time-barred debt. The delay would mean that third-party mortgage-servicing entities and others governed by the FDCPA will not be able to use the new safe harbors for compliance…
Consumer Protection Financial Bureau (“CFPB”) Proposes To Stop Foreclosures Through The End Of 2021
Saying that the pandemic has caused a “shocking increase in housing uncertainty,” the CFPB proposed Monday, 4/6/21, to stop mortgage servicers from foreclosing on most home loans until after the end of 2021. The plan outlined by the agency is an attempt to give borrowers time to find ways to make payments once pandemic relief ends. “We are going to use everything in our toolbox to prevent avoidable foreclosures,” Acting CFPB Director Dave Uejio told reporters in a telephone conference call. “This rule is one of the sharpest tools in our toolbox.” He said the agency wants “to ensure that…
Sandford Landress v. Cambridge Land Co. II LLC (In re Cambridge Land Co. II LLC), 20-1110 (B.A.P. 9th Cir. April 2, 2021)
BAP Says Undisclosed Assets Revest in the Debtor After Dismissal of Bankruptcy case, but Not After Closing of bankruptcy case. If bankruptcy case is closed as fully administered, only scheduled assets are abandoned back to debtor, per 11 USC 350: If a case is dismissed, all assets revest in the debtor and nothing remains in the bankruptcy estate, not even undisclosed assets. Unscheduled, undisclosed property is treated altogether differently when a case was dismissed compared to what happens if the case was closed, as the Ninth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel explained in an April 2 opinion. If the case was…