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I know the Borrower Defense to Repayment Program has undergone so many changes, and been impacted by political and practical concerns that sometimes none of us knew which way was up, however, the recent Sweet settlement gives hope!  And some much needed finality.  (Remember the settlement is not yet final and could change)  Here’s a Facebook note posted by Nic Brown who has been a very vocal advocate in helping others obtain student debt relief.  His actions to encourage others to speak out, be a class member for various class actions and file claims where warranted, kept the pressure on.  I’m sure many who followed in his footsteps will finally be debt free!

Nic’s story:

In 2008 I graduated from a “college” that promised me a lot in the beginning and ended up being nothing more than a fraud at the end.

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Whoo Hoo!  In a class action Sweet v. Cardona, the parties, including the Department of Education, have just announced a settlement of Borrower Defense to Repayment claims (“BDTR”).  It’s still early, and we don’t yet know if this settlement will be approved by the Court or if some of the named schools will oppose it.  We anticipate that the listed schools who are still in business will oppose the settlement or petition to have their school removed from the presumptive list.  Here is a copy of the filed settlement agreement.  So while this isn’t final, it’s certainly a huge step in the likely direction of where these BDTR applications are headed.  It’s been a long time coming, and will result in much needed relief for student loan borrowers.

What should you know?  Well, first of all, here is a list of schools that are presently in line for a full discharge.

For a FAQ, please go here.   One of the parties who has been instrumental in obtaining this settlement, the Project on Predatory Student Lending, has prepared detailed questions and answers for those who attended these schools or have allegations of fraud under the BDTR program.

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A close friend’s husband was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia several years ago.  Little did we know at the time that it was quite likely due to his early childhood spent at Camp LeJeune.  I learned that his mother used to mix his baby formula with water which came from the base’s water treatment facility.  No one knew at that time from the early 50s to late 80s, the drinking water supply at the Camp LeJeune Marine Corps base in North Carolina was heavily contaminated with toxic, carcinogenic chemicals.  The levels of toxicity were thousands of times higher than the maximum safe limits set by the EPA.

After many medical procedures and seemingly truckloads of medications later, my friend’s husband, is still among us; however, his life trajectory is much different now.  Same with his family.  A new normal one might say.

I’ve been reading up on the subject a lot over the past few days.  I’ve learned that many, if not most, individuals who have lived at Camp LeJeune at some point in their lives, have not had the opportunity to even try and show culpability or obtain damages for the litany of health problems that have plagued them throughout the many years.  This is because the government typically has sovereign immunity protection where it cannot be sued.  Even when water contamination at Camp LeJeune is expected to be one of the worst cases, if not the worst contamination event in the history of the United States.  Also, how do you prove causation over forty years?

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If you have significant debt but have been told that you cannot file a Chapter 13 consumer bankruptcy, now you can file bankruptcy and not risk dismissal by the U.S. Trustees office.  This change occurred because the Bankruptcy Threshold Adjustment and Technical Corrections Act was signed into law yesterday.  Prior to this Act, someone with high debt was forced into a Chapter 11 — which is extraordinarily expensive and time consuming for the average consumer.  A Chapter 13 is much more cost-effective and efficient to reorganize someone’s finances.

While the name of this Act is thoroughly boring, it is very practical and necessary.  This Act fixes a recurring problem that has reared its head more in the past year than ever before.  Student debt has reached such a high number for many borrowers, that it was actually preventing someone from filing bankruptcy to address that student debt, or even to get rid of ordinary household debt or stop a foreclosure.

Now the debt limit for an individual filing a Chapter 13 is $2.75 million and the Act also removes the distinction between secured and unsecured debt.  This new law is temporary and will sunset on June 21, 2024.  So basically, this means that if you wait two years to file, you will NOT receive the benefit of this debt increase and may again, be prohibited from filing bankruptcy.

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On Friday, the Senate passed a bill that would provide relief to thousands who have been trapped in a long battle with the Department of Education after a married couple had the misfortune of consolidating their loans.  While at first blush that may have seemed like a good idea, the joint spousal loan was not eligible for some of the best relief out there including income-driven plans and public service forgiveness.  We’ve tried to correct this problem by filing an adversary action in bankruptcy to obtain a similar result for our clients who were simply told “no” by the Department.  We were successful in doing so, up until the DeVos administration backtracked on us.

The Joint Consolidation Loan Separation (JCLs) Act of 2021 will:

  • Allow borrowers to submit an application to the Department of Education to split the JCL into two separate federal direct loans.
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This week, the parties in Sweet v. Cardona filed a motion with the court that they had reached a settlement in principle to resolve the case. As a quick refresher, this case challenged 1) the Department’s failure to issue timely adjudications on borrower defense claims and 2) the Department’s blanket denials of thousands of borrower defense claims during the DeVos administration.

We will learn more in the coming days about the contents of the settlement, but I have every reason to be optimistic that it will be pretty darn good.  So stay tuned.

In the meantime, if you’ve attended a for-profit school and was defrauded in any way, please file a Borrower Defense to Repayment application here:  https://studentaid.gov/borrower-defense/

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A mortgage servicer called a “furnisher” for purposes of credit reporting is responsible for updates to a borrower’s credit report.  Many times following a foreclosure, there is a limited time for the lender to seek a deficiency judgment.  Here is Florida it is one year.  If a year goes by, and the lender fails to seek a deficiency judgment then it waives the amount it is still owed after the foreclosure sale of a home.

Here’s the good news:  If a lender fails to report a deficiency as having been eliminated, discharged or abolished, it is then reporting inaccurate information.  This inaccurate reporting opens the door to the furnisher’s liability under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. Section 1681 et seq., (the “FCRA”) per the Ninth Circuit (California) in a recent case.  Gross v. CitiMortgage, Inc., 20-17160 (9th Cir. May 16, 2022).

This case is being compared to a leading contempt case, where the Supreme Court in Midland Funding  LLC v. Johnson, 137 S.Ct. 1407, (2017) found that a debt collector who filed a proof of claim in a bankruptcy that was obviously barred by the statute of limitations did NOT engage in false, deceptive, misleading, unconscionable, or unfair conduct so there was no violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.  While this decision involved a different set of circumstances and a different law, it is clear that these two views could be considered as inconsistent.

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I’m happy to say that we are starting to see Navient refund checks coming in!  A client today received a check for $13,795 which represents payments he had made on a Navient private student loan after June 30, 2021.  The remaining balance on these loans were forgiven per the Navient Attorney General settlement.

If you have questions about the Navient AG settlement, please watch and subscribe to our video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m5rmBoj8eg

A FAQ is located here as well:  https://navientagsettlement.com/Common-Questions?portalid=0.

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We’ve made the difficult decision to not take any further clients who have requested assistance in filing Borrower Defense to Repayment applications.  Importantly, it is NOT because the program itself won’t result in possible full forgiveness, we still expect that for many borrowers, but it is taking a longgg time.  If you have filed a BDTR application, go here and click Manage my Application to find any updates on its processing:  https://studentaid.gov/borrower-defense/.

We’ll still be doing all of our other student loan stuff, just not the BDTR applications.

Mostly our decision to not offer assistance in filing BDTR applications is because the Department of Education’s procedures have tied our hands.  We can no longer file the applications online like we used to be able to do.  Even reviewing the PDF draft applications hasn’t been working well because the application itself when forwarded by the client to our office does not always convey the information to view, many of the text boxes are blank unless and until the application form itself is revised per Adobe to correctly retain the data.  It took our IT company some time to figure that out and only the Department of Education can modify their application.

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Life Isn’t Meant to be Lived Paycheck to Paycheck

I know there’s been lots of press about the 8.5% inflation rate that was announced this week.

I also know that many people don’t believe that number.  Why not?

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