Category Archives: Other Lending, Debt, and Credit Issues

No standing to challenge delayed release of title, Eighth Circuit holds

Under Missouri law, lienholders must release their liens within 5 days after payment in full of any moneys owed. According to the plaintiff in a putative class action, Santander Consumer violates this law by waiting fifteen days to send the title after a borrower pays off a car loan. After Santander removed the case, a […]

Lawsuit challenges CFPB overdraft rule

As Christine reported, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a rule just yesterday to cap overdraft fees. Already, a group of banking associations have challenged it. The complaint, filed in Mississippi, is available here.

FDIC Survey: “Record low 5.6 million households remain unbanked” in 2023

More American households are accessing the banking system. According to an FDIC survey released this month, 96 percent of all U.S. households had bank accounts in 2023. The survey, conducted biennially with the U.S. Census Bureau, found little difference between 2023 and the previous 2021 data, but showed a marked improvement from the 2011 survey […]

Auto financing practices under scrutiny in CFPB’s latest supervisory report

In its recently released Supervisory report, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau highlights unfair (and abusive) acts and practices in auto financing. In this sector, the CFPB says its Supervision pays particular attention to auto repossessions, where it found numerous unfair acts and practices. Among them, the bureau found that a servicer or servicers erroneously repossessed […]

Peterson & Ehrlich paper on RESPA, corrupt joint ventures, and mortgage settlement services

Christopher Lewis Peterson of Utah and Jeffrey Paul Ehrlich of St. Thomas University and McGuireWoods LLP have written Corrupt Joint Ventures in the Market for Residential Real-Estate-Settlement Services. Here’s the abstract: Closing costs in residential-real-estate sales have long acted as a significant barrier to American home ownership. In the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974 […]

CFPB proposes interpretive rule regarding “earned wage” loans

Today, the CFPB issued a report on the growth of “earned wage” cash advances , by which employers partner with third party companies to offer employees loans based on earned wages. The report found that, in addition to fees, these loans typically have an APR of 109.5%. Along with the report, the CFPB issued a […]

CFPB proposes rules to help homeowners avoid foreclosure

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed “new rules to make it easier for homeowners to get help when they are struggling to pay their mortgage. The proposal, if finalized, would require mortgage servicers to focus on helping borrowers, not foreclosing, when a homeowner asks for help. The proposed changes would also make it simpler […]

Seventh Circuit Holds ECOA Prohibits Discrimination Against Prospective Applicants

The Federal Reserve Board’s Regulation B implements the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, and prohibits creditors from discouraging, on a prohibited basis, applicants or prospective applicants from making or pursuing an application for credit. In 2020, the CFPB, who now enforces the regulation, brought an enforcement action alleging a lender “discouraged black prospective applicants from applying […]

Crootof paper on the legal consequences of repossessions by cars that autonomously drive back to the lender

Rebecca Crootof of Richmond Law and the Yale Information Society Project has written Remote Repossession, 73 DePaul Law Review, (forthcoming 2024). Here’s the abstract: Ford’s February 2023 patent application raises a new possibility: that after a default, an internet-connected vehicle might autonomously drive itself off of the owner’s premises—to a public space, to the repossession agency, […]