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Mortgage Servicing and Loan Modifications: VERMONT

Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 27, § 464

Requirements: Payoff statement to be mailed or delivered within five days of request; holder or any authorized servicer’s liability in civil action for noncompliance: $25 per day up to $5000, consequential and punitive damages, costs, and attorney fees. See also tit. 8, § 2232a(c).

Mortgage Servicing and Loan Modifications: VIRGINIA

Va. Code Ann. § 6.2-418

Requirements: The holder shall mail or deliver written statement of the amount to the property owner or property owner’s designee within ten business days of the receipt of a written request from such party or party’s designee.

Mortgage Servicing and Loan Modifications: WEST VIRGINIA

W. Va. Code § 31-17-9(d)

Requirements: Holder shall provide without charge to the borrower within three business days after receipt of the borrower’s written request, a payoff statement in manner requested by borrower.

Fair Debt Collection: Civil liability

The committee views this legislation as primarily self-enforcing; consumers who have been subjected to collection abuses will be enforcing compliance.

Fair Debt Collection: Administrative enforcement

This legislation is enforced administratively primarily by the Federal Trade Commission. If a depository institution subject to regulation by another Federal agency engages in debt collection, administrative enforcement authority is lodged with that agency. [Page 6]

Fair Debt Collection: Relation to State law

The Committee believes that this law ought not to foreclose the States from enacting or enforcing their own laws regarding debt collection. Accordingly, this legislation annuls only “inconsistent” State laws, with stronger State laws not regarded as inconsistent. In addition, States with substantially similar laws may be exempted from the act’s requirements (but not its remedies) by applying to the Federal Trade Commission.

Fair Debt Collection: Cost of This Legislation

Enactment of this legislation will result in no new or additional costs to the Federal Government. The Congressional Budget Office analysis of this bill is contained in the following letter:

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE,

U.S. CONGRESS,

Washington, D.C., July 27, 1977.

HON. WILLIAM PROXMIRE,

Chairman, Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs,

U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C.

Fair Debt Collection: Changes in Existing Law

In the opinion of the Committee, it is necessary to dispense with the requirements of subsection 4 of Rule XXIX of the Standing Rules of the Senate in order to expedite the business of the Senate. [Page 7]

Fair Debt Collection: Section-by-Section Summary

Section 801. Short title.—The act may be cited as the “Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.”

Section 802. Findings and purpose.—The Congress finds that collection abuses by independent debt collectors are serious and widespread and that existing State laws are inadequate to curb these abuses. The purpose of the title is to eliminate abusive practices, not disadvantage ethical debt collectors, and promote consistent state action.

Fair Debt Collection: Additional Views of Messrs. Schmitt, Garn and Tower

It is our view that the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is an unwarranted Federal intrusion into an area best left to the States. Although we recognize that some debt collectors employ unconscionable practices in collecting debts, we do not feel that the hearings in either the House or Senate subcommittees produced substantial evidence that there is a serious national problem which justifies such detailed Federal regulation of the operation of the business of collecting debts. A far better approach is that contained in S.

Fair Debt Collection: 1.1.1.2 Organization of the Treatise

This treatise is designed to help lawyers and paralegals representing consumers who are victims of abusive debt collection practices. It may also be useful to debt collection professionals as a part of their legal compliance efforts.

The chapters of the treatise are divided as follows:

Fair Debt Collection: 1.1.1.8 Defining “Debt Collector” in This Treatise

This treatise covers laws applicable to all types of debt collectors—creditors, first-party debt collectors, third-party debt collectors, debt buyers, collection attorneys, and the employees of each that make the phone calls asking for money. Unless the context indicates otherwise, the term “debt collector” or “collector” may be used in this treatise to mean any person collecting a debt.

Fair Debt Collection: 1.1.3 Trainings and Continuing Legal Education

National Consumer Law Center staff participates in a variety of in-person training events on fair debt collection laws. NCLC organizes the annual Consumer Rights Litigation Conference for consumer advocates. This conference generally provides sessions on fair debt collection issues. NCLC and the National Association of Consumer Advocates have sponsored a two-day training on fair debt collection issues annually since 2004.

Fair Debt Collection: 1.2 A Brief History of Debt Collection and Its Regulation in the United States

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, one of the factors that propelled emigration from England to the American colonies was the harsh enforcement of early English bankruptcy laws.4 Fear of debtors’ prison—where debtors were kept without bedding, blankets, coal, or access to medical care until their debts could be paid5—drove “shiploads” of Englishmen to relocate to the colonies.6 At the time, English bankruptcy laws gave the right of action to the cred