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Consumer Bankruptcy Law and Practice: 5.3.3.2 Property

Among the types of property clients often forget in reporting their assets are long-dormant accounts with savings institutions, such as banks and credit unions. Especially in the case of the latter, the client may not have access to a share balance (deposit) that was required to secure a loan. Nonetheless, such a balance belongs to the client and may become important to the case.

Consumer Bankruptcy Law and Practice: 5.3.3.3 Liabilities

Naturally, the opportunity for discharge of debts in bankruptcy should be used to its fullest, and every conceivable liability should be searched out and considered in weighing the advantages of a petition. Clients do not always realize that they have certain types of debts, especially if payment has not been demanded. Just as a legal claim may be a form of property, so too may a legal claim give rise to a liability if the client is the potential defendant.

Student Loan Law: 3.2 Student Loan Payment Pause and Flexibilities for Returning to Repayment

In response to the unpreceded COVID-19 national emergency, the obligation to make payments on eligible federal student loans (including all Direct Loans and Department-held FFEL Program loans and Perkins Loans) was temporarily suspended and interest rates were temporarily set to 0%. This emergency relief—often referred to as the student loan payment pause (payment pause)—began on March 13, 2020 and ended on August 31, 2023.

Student Loan Law: 3.1 Overview

When a federal student loan enters repayment, the borrower is automatically enrolled in the standard repayment plan with fixed monthly payments based on their loan balance, interest rate, and repayment term. However, borrowers may choose to enroll in—or switch to—a different repayment plan.

Truth in Lending: 11.1 Introduction

With few exceptions,1 violations of Truth in Lending Act (TILA) requirements give rise to several remedies: actual damages, individual statutory damages, class action statutory damages, and attorney fees.

Truth in Lending: 11.2.4.2.1 Violation of preconsummation disclosure requirements

The failure to provide accurate preconsummation disclosures could easily cause a monetary injury. Absent proper disclosure, consumers could sign contracts they might not otherwise sign. The same violation could also interfere with a consumer’s attempt to shop for a better price. The consumer might decline to shop, thinking the disclosed price was reasonable and affordable, or the consumer might reject better offers. The end result is that the consumer owes money that would not otherwise be owed, and this is a concrete injury.110

Truth in Lending: 11.2.4.3 Harm Is Concrete Even If Its Magnitude Is Small

The Supreme Court has made it clear that a small harm is sufficient to create standing: even “an identifiable trifle is enough for standing.”198 For example, temporary deprivation of money will likely be sufficient, even if the amount is small.199 Courts have held that the drain on a cell phone’s battery from receipt of a single call or text message,200 or the wasted ink, toner, or paper caused by receipt of an unwanted fax,

Consumer Banking and Payments Law: 7.3.5 Fair Labor Standards Act

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires employers to pay their employees a minimum wage.836 Deductions from employees’ paychecks that, for whatever reason, bring the employees’ pay under the minimum wage violate the FLSA.837 If fees on a payroll card prevent the employee from accessing the full minimum wage, it can violate the FLSA.

Student Loan Law: 11.2.1 Introduction

In response to concerns that student loan debt prevents borrowers from working in public service professions—e.g., teaching, law enforcement, public interest law, and social work—Congress passed a loan forgiveness program for public service employees in 2007.6

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: 6.6.3.2 Rules Requiring Disclosure of All Material Restrictions

The FTC Telemarketing Rule requires disclosure of all material restrictions, limitations or conditions to purchase, receive or use goods or services that are the subject of an offer that is covered by the rule.273 A telemarketer’s failure to disclose material limitations on the use of an offered credit card is a violation of the rule.274 A number of states have similar requirements in their telemarketing statutes.275

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: 6.6.4 Coercive Tactics

Coercive tactics to obtain the consumer’s agreement to a transaction can be UDAP violations.279 It is unfair and deceptive for a creditor to take a loan application, mortgage and note from the applicant, record the mortgage, and then disapprove the loan, but refuse to satisfy the mortgage unless the consumer pays a broker fee and other charges.280 Coercing the consumer’s payment of spurious charges in order to get a payoff statement so a home can be sold is a UDAP violation.

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: 6.7.2.1 Substantive Rules Under Truth in Lending Act

Until its rulemaking authority was transferred to the CFPB, the Federal Reserve Board had the authority to adopt rules identifying unfair, deceptive, or abusive mortgage lending practices. The rules that the FRB adopted, and particularly the analysis it published in the Federal Register when adopting them, may be persuasive to courts in considering whether those practices are UDAP violations. Even if a particular transaction is not subject to one of these rules, some of which have been superseded, courts may be persuaded by the agency’s analysis.

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: 6.7.2.3 Loans Doomed to Foreclosure Because of a Combination of Risky Features

The federal banking agencies’ guidance letters regarding predatory and unsustainable mortgage lending can act as powerful support for a UDAP unfairness claim. In 2008, the highest court in Massachusetts upheld a preliminary injunction restricting foreclosure by the now-defunct subprime lender Fremont.331 The decision affirms the trial court’s holding that the state attorney general had made a sufficient showing that mortgage loans were presumptively unfair if they contained four characteristics:

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: 6.7.2.4 Other Unfair and Deceptive Practices in Mortgage Lending

Many states have predatory lending laws that prohibit at least some abusive mortgage lending practices.342 Massachusetts has UDAP regulations requiring extensive disclosures by mortgage brokers and mortgage lenders of all aspects of a mortgage loan (other than a loan used to purchase the home or an open-end home equity line of credit), and prohibiting a variety of unfair and deceptive practices.343 Misrepresenting the advantages344 or failing to di

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: 6.7.4 Payoff of Mortgage

A lender commits a UDAP violation by misrepresenting the payoff amount on a mortgage loan.377 Requiring the payment of unauthorized fees before a mortgage will be satisfied is deceptive.378 Merely adding such fees to a payoff statement, which gives the false impression that payment is required before the mortgage will be released, is a UDAP violation.379 Violating a state statute requiring prompt recordation of the reconveyance of a deed of trust a