National Consumer Law Center

NCLC’s Model Manufactured Home Community Stability and Preservation Act (2023) sets forth model language to give residents of manufactured home communities an opportunity to purchase their communities. It requires the community owner to give the residents—and a state agency, the local housing authority, and the local licensing or health and safety enforcement agency—advance notice of any prospective sale of the community. The notice must include the price, terms, and conditions that the community owner has provisionally accepted or is prepared to accept.

Mediation Program for Distressed Homeowners: Judicial Foreclosure States (2022) creates a mediation process as an initial step in a judicial foreclosure. Detailed information is specified for the complaint in a judicial foreclosure.  The court clerk on receiving the complaint initiates the mediation process requiring the parties to come to mediation with specified information. No fees can be assessed, the complaint need not be answered, and the judicial proceeding is frozen until the mediator issues a report.

Mediation Program for Distressed Homeowners: Non-Judicial Foreclosure States (2022) creates a state-run mediation process prior to a foreclosure. Prior to any foreclosure, the consumer and the state mediation agency must receive a detailed notice concerning a defaulted home mortgage.   After the notice is sent and until a mediator’s report, no fees can be assessed, or a foreclosure initiated.  The state agency initiates the mediation process requiring the parties to come to mediation with specified information.

The Model State Consumer & Employment Justice Enforcement Act (2017) includes 10 titles setting out state law provisions that are not preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act and that limit selected abuses related to mandatory arbitration requirements:

Model Statute of Limitations Reform Act (2015) establishes a three-year limitations period for collection of consumer debt, irrespective of the applicable cause of action.  A debt is extinguished after that period, and a payment or affirmation of the debt does not extend the limitations period, and a contractual choice of law cannot extend the period.  A five-year limitations period Is set for actions upon a judgment against the consumer. 

Model Consumer Amendments to Uniform Wage Garnishment Act (2017). The Uniform Law Commission has adopted a Uniform Wage Garnishment Act setting out state law protections from wage garnishment.  This NCLC model law provides consumer amendments to that law.  Wage garnishment is generally prohibited except for specified types of debts, and then the model amendments protect 60 times the hourly minimum wage and also any funds necessary for the support of the judgment debtor or the judgment debtor’s family.

The Model Family Financial Protection Act (Rev. Nov. 2023) has two titles—the first deals with consumer contract and collection protections and the second with property exempt from creditors.  Among other provisions, the first title limits terms that can be found in consumer form contracts, establishes verification and disclosure requirements for debt collectors, limits collector recording of calls with consumers, and restricts imprisonment for debt.

Model Medical Debt Protection Act (2024) replaces the 2019 model law.  The 2024 version requires for-profit hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers outpatient clinics, and health care professionals working in those settings to adopt financial assistance policies and establish certain screening procedures.  So would large health care practice groups.

The Model State Coerced Debt Law (May 2024) provides civil legal remedies for victims of coerced debt—debt that occurs when an abuser utilizes coercive control or identity theft to incur debt in the name of the victim. Under the model law, if a debtor provides a “statement of coerced debt” and “adequate documentation,” the creditor must take specific actions within a certain timeframe, such as ceasing debt collection attempts, dismissing collection lawsuits, and notifying consumer reporting agencies to delete information about the coerced debt.

This is a 2023 amicus brief filed by EPIC and NCLC in a TCPA case asking the Ninth Circuit to rehear en banc the opinion below in Borden v. eFinancial, LLC, 53 F.4th 1230 (9th Cir. 2022).  The amicus brief argues that the opinion unnecessarily guts the autodialer restriction. By inserting the phrase “number” into “random or sequential number generator,” the Borden decision ensures that the autodialer restriction will no longer cover the most common automated dialing equipment.