Servicemember Protections – Consumer Financial Services Watch

COVID-19: Impact on Consumer Financial Service Providers

Apr 01 2020

A Summary of Federal and State Statutes, Rules and Orders

By David E. Fialkow, Brian M. Forbes, and Jeffrey S. Patterson

The coronavirus (“COVID-19”) pandemic has been and will continue to be a major business disrupter that will have a substantial impact on the consumer financial services industry in the weeks and months to come. Notably, federal, state and local governments and agencies are acting swiftly and changing the rules by which consumer financial services companies are to do business in the short and long term. K&L Gates LLP (“K&L Gates”) has developed a COVID-19 Task Force to closely monitor these developments and is tracking them in several jurisdictions across the firm’s footprint. Below is a summary, current as of March 30, 2020, of key new and proposed statutes, rules, and orders that are likely to impact consumer financial services companies. Keeping track of these almost daily developments to foreclosure, eviction, debt collection, student loans and other business lines, which vary state to state, is critical for consumer financial services companies to respond to their customers. As with previous nationwide crises, how these companies implement and apply these changes will have a substantial impact on post-pandemic compliance, litigation, and risks. K&L Gates has team members assigned to each of the states listed below who are able to help answer your questions and help companies address ongoing issues associated with the pandemic. Please click on a jurisdiction below for more information:

CFPB Publishes New Mortgage Servicing Exam Procedures

Feb 18 2014

By: Nanci L. Weissgold, Kerri M. Smith, Christopher Shelton*

*Mr. Shelton is not admitted to the practice of law in the District of Columbia.

The CFPB has released updated exam procedures for reviewing mortgage servicers, incorporating the Mortgage Servicing Rules (“the Rules”) that became effective on January 10, 2014. These updated exam procedures still focus on nine major modules covering routine servicing, default servicing, and foreclosure. However, they frequently cross-reference the TILA and RESPA exam procedures that were updated in November 2013 to reflect the Rules. Because of the overlap in coverage and the reliance on cross-referencing, the updated servicing exam procedures are shorter than the prior version of the CFPB’s Examination Manual, although there are some notable additions. Read More

Servicemembers’ Civil Relief Act Protections Extended

Aug 27 2012

By: David I. Monteiro

On August 6, 2012, President Obama signed into law another extension to the protections from nonjudicial foreclosure afforded to members of the military under the federal Servicemembers’ Civil Relief Act (Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012, or the “Act”). Prior to the Act, the SCRA prohibited nonjudicial foreclosures on mortgage loans to active-duty members of the military, both during military service and for nine months after termination of active service. The Act extends these protections from nine months to one year following the end of military service. This extension takes effect on February 2, 2013. Read More

Protecting the Protectors – the Global Settlement Agreements’ SCRA Provisions

Apr 03 2012

By: Jonathan D. Jaffe

Given the reported violations of the provisions of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (“SCRA”) by some servicers, and the attendant enforcement and civil actions against those servicers, state and federal regulators clearly felt compelled to impose significant SCRA-related requirements on the nation’s five largest residential mortgage loan servicers (the “Servicers”) in the recent global settlement agreements (the “Agreements”) entered into between those regulators and Servicers, described here. Read More

The CFPB’s Office of Servicemember Affairs Looks at the Lending Practices of For-Profit Colleges and Their Impact on Military Members

Dec 07 2011

By: Rebecca Lobenherz

When servicemembers are discussed in relation to the consumer credit industry, the discussion usually centers on the protections to military homeowners and credit card holders under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (“SCRA”). While SCRA remains a concern of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB” or “Bureau”), recently the Office of Servicemember Affairs has been taking aim at a more unlikely target: student loans. The CFPB is looking into the recruiting practices of for-profit colleges to determine if for-profit colleges are exploiting servicemembers in order to evade a federal financial aid rule.
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Catagory:Servicemember Protections