The North Carolina Creditors Bar (the "Bar") is a voluntary bar association comprised of creditor's rights attorneys licensed and practicing in North Carolina. The Bar has 96 members from 40 law firms. The law firms represented range in size from sole proprietorships...

The head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau now believes that the financial regulator she leads is unconstitutionally structured, CNBC.com reported. CFPB Director Kathleen Kraninger notified senior lawmakers yesterday that the bureau had determined that the...

As too many plaintiffs know, getting a judgment is often only the beginning of the process. It can sometimes take longer and require far more effort to collect on the judgment than it does to get a judge to enter it. Often, after exhausting the usual methods of...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEJuly 26, 2018 National Creditors Bar Association is the only national bar association that is dedicated to serving attorneys engaged in the practice of creditors rights law. NCBA fosters and advances professional practices and ethical conduct....

Tougher rules governing the payday lending industry, finalized during the last weeks of an Obama-era appointee who led the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will remain in place for now after Congress allowed a deadline to overrule them pass without action, the...

The D.C. Circuit has issued its long-awaited decision on the FCC’s 2015 TCPA Declaratory Ruling.  ACA International v. Federal Communications Commission, No. 15-1211 (Mar. 16, 2018).  The ruling invalidates the FCC’s definition of an automated telephone dialing system...

The Sixth Circuit recently made clear its position that “Congress cannot override the baseline requirement[s] of Article III of the U.S. Constitution by labeling the violation of any requirements of a statute a cognizable injury.”  In Hagy v. Demers & Adams, 2018...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will team up with the Federal Trade Commission to police debt collectors as it shifts to a gentler form of enforcement under the Trump administration, the Wall Street Journalreported. CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney...

Any opinion that starts out by stating “[t]his case is about $82.00” is not likely to go well for one party and in this instance, that was the case for Nestor Saroza.  A New Jersey district court recently held that a debt collection letter was not false or deceptive...

The Tenth Circuit has weighed in on whether a non-judicial foreclosure is debt collection activity.  In doing so, the Tenth Circuit has joined a split in the circuits on the issue.  With the Tenth Circuit’s decision the circuits remain split with the Ninth Circuit and...

On November 24, 2017, the White House appointed Mick Mulvaney as acting director of the CFPB, effective November 27, 2017.  Since then, concerns have been raised that Mulvaney might ‘gut” the agency.  Here is a quick look at the actions of the agency since Mulvaney’s...

BY RICK ROTHACKER​rrothacker@charlotteobserver.comA federal bankruptcy court judge on Tuesday approved a settlement that resolves a long-running series of contentious lawsuits over a failed Charlotte bus company.The agreement settles four lawsuits brought by trustee...

This morning, the Supreme Court declined to resolve a circuit split and rule on whether a transfer into someone’s own bank account qualifies as a “transfer” to lay the foundation for a fraudulent transfer suit.​In Ivey v. First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. (In re...

The controversial rulemaking, which drew a record-breaking number of comments from both industry stakeholders and consumers opposed to the CFPB’s proposals, imposes complex ability-to-repay requirements on payday and other loans, along with new debit disclosures and...

The Practice of Law Technical Clarification Act, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Dave Trott, was among several bills reviewed during a hearing on “Legislative Proposals for a More Efficient Federal Financial Regulatory Regime. ​The House Financial Services Subcommittee on...

It is not every day the U.S. Supreme Court pays attention to matters that affect the practice of discovery, but that day came with Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. v. Haeger, 137 S.Ct 1178 (April 18, 2017). Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Kagan explained that when...

The Code or rules must change to bar debt collectors from filing stale claims, Judge Dow says. Now that the Supreme Court has allowed debt collectors to file stale claims, the statute or the Bankruptcy Rules must be amended before courts can halt the practice,...

Another Spokeo opinion from the Supreme Court may trim back federal consumer protection laws.  Before the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Spokeo Inc. v. Robins, ostensibly to decide whether Congress can confer Article III (or...

The question hanging over the CFPB’s arbitration rule — a proposal that drew tens of thousands of comments from consumer and business advocates — is less now about the finer points of the final rule than about whether the regulations will ever see the light of day at...

The House of Representatives voted yesterday to add a new section to the bankruptcy code just for banks, a measure meant to allow banks to fail without needing taxpayer bailouts or setting off a crisis, the Washington Examiner reported yesterday. The lower chamber...

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the First Amendment applies to a New York law concerning credit card fees, the New York Times reported. The decision was a victory for five businesses that had sought to tell their customers that they imposed a surcharge for...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) today introduced The Bankruptcy Judgeship Act of 2017. This legislation would ensure that individuals and corporations have access to...

Federal Reserve officials still expect to raise short-term interest rates two more times this year after lifting them Wednesday — and they see no major changes in their economic outlook, the Wall Street Journal reported today. In economic projections released...

By Graham H. Kidner, General Counsel, HUTCHENS LAW FIRMThe purchaser at a judgment execution sale of the secured property, subsequently identified as a respondent in the later foreclosure proceedings, challenged the right of the petitioner mortgage company to...

On April 25, 2016 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued its latest consent order against a law firm that specializes in consumer debt collection. The April 25 order is against Pressler & Pressler, a New Jersey law firm. A similar consent order was...

By Graham H. Kidner, General Counsel, HUTCHENS LAW FIRM​Although the federal Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act expired in December 2014, when Congress declined to extend its terms, North Carolina enacted legislation, which became effective on October 1, 2015,...

By Graham H. Kidner, General Counsel, HUTCHENS LAW FIRMFollowing a foreclosure sale the general rule is that the amount of the debt is reduced by the net proceeds realized from the sale, setting the deficiency amount the foreclosing creditor may seek to recover. ...

By Graham H. Kidner, General Counsel, HUTCHENS LAW FIRMWhen a substitute trustee holds a resale of the secured property following the failure of the highest bidder at the sale to comply with his bid, N.C.G.S. § 45-21.30(c) requires that “[t]he procedure for such...

By Michael B. Stein, Associate Attorney, HUTCHENS LAW FIRMIn North Carolina, powers of sale foreclosures are relatively limited in their scope.  To authorize a foreclosure sale, the Clerk of Superior Court must find the existence of only six elements: (i) a valid debt...

By Graham H. Kidner, General Counsel, HUTCHENS LAW FIRMGiven the increased emphasis on compliance with consumer-protection laws in recent years, it is expected that banks and mortgage companies will be familiar with all the federal laws and regulations impacting...

The guaranty agreement is a common security mechanism lenders utilize to increase the likelihood of repayment of a commercial loan in the event of default.    This is especially true in situations where the borrower is a limited asset or one asset business.  In such...

The North Carolina Creditors Bar Association supports Senate Bill 632, currently short-titled “Civil Judgment/Allow Wage Garnishment.”  You can learn more about the bill through the North Carolina General Assembly’s website here.Mitch Myers, Litigation Managing...