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California is getting closer to passing a ‘student-loan borrower bill of rights'
A new bill aims to establish a student-loan ombudsman and allow borrowers to sue their student-loan companies.
For decades, Max Soucia has been trying to stay current on his student loans.
Since he graduated with his master’s degree in divinity in 1993, Soucia, 72, has been in touch on and off with the various student-loan companies hired by the government to manage his debt.
Despite taking steps on several occasions to understand his options, Soucia’s loan balance ballooned from the $40,000 he initially borrowed to roughly $300,000.
He defaulted on his loans and now the government is garnishing 15% of the $900 a month he receives in Social Security benefits to pay back the loans.
At one point, Soucia believed he had arranged to put his loans into one of an affordable repayment plan that allows borrowers to pay off their debt as a percentage of their income.
But he later discovered his loans were in default and it took multiple calls to his servicer to get them to confirm that was the case.
Now a proposed California law aims make troubling stories like Soucia’s a thing of the past. A bill winding its way through the state legislature aims to establish a “student-loan borrower bill of rights” and create an ombudsman that borrowers could turn to with their complaints.
The bill passed the state’s Assembly last month. Late Wednesday, the proposal moved one step to becoming law after it passed the state Senate’s Banking Committee.
he bill would need to pass the full Senate and be signed by Democratic governor Gavin Newsom for it to become law. Supporters are optimistic of its chances, given the attention on student debt. In addition, California already successfully established some student loan servicing regulations in 2016.
The bill would also ban abusive or deceptive practices in student-loan servicing, put new requirements on how student-loan companies process student-loan payments and require the companies to have specialized training for representatives to help military borrowers, older borrowers, borrowers with disabilities and borrowers in public service.
In addition, it would require student-loan companies to turn over data on their activities to the state’s Department of Business Oversight, which the agency could then use to publish information on how well the companies are serving borrowers. Finally, the bill gives borrowers the power to sue their student loan companies if they believe they’ve been wronged.
rest at link
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/california-is-one-step-closer-to-passing-the-most-aggressive-student-loan-protections-in-the-country-2019-06-20
this is why the recent news on treasury mandating financial education for student loans applications is BADLY needed. This example did not have a clue what they were signing and only saw the money-not condoning the bait and swtich of the servicer but holy shit understand what you sign.
Treasury Department recommends ‘mandatory’ financial-literacy courses for college students
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/treasury-dept-says-student-debt-crisis-is-so-bad-that-financial-education-should-be-mandatory-for-college-students-2019-06-17
change your attitude and remove yourself from the soapbox. bad look for you
good luck with the ego
trips confirm, ego-driven faggot.
give it up, you've spent over 20 posts defending your bullshit op. even said someone else was arrogant.
your opinions are nothing moar than backing up your seriously flawed op to begin with
fuck off
Will Fannie and Freddie get a new sibling?
After over a decade of stagnation, the race is finally on to release mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from government control and reshape the housing finance system.
The devil is, as always, in the details — except that some of the “details” aren’t so limited in scope. One of the biggest questions in play right now revolves around the question of whether Fannie and Freddie will continue to operate as a duopoly. It’s a question with enormous implications: trillions of dollars of business for industry participants, and access to the American Dream for ordinary households.
As a brief reminder, the two companies were chartered by Congress decades ago to provide liquidity to the U.S. mortgage market. Fannie FNMA, and Freddie FMCC, don’t make mortgages, but buy the ones that lenders extend to borrowers, helping free up more capacity for the banks to go out and lend more.
During the housing bubble of the early 2000s, the two competed with all kinds of private-sector mortgage players.
They extended too much, and too-risky, credit, leading to a liquidity crisis.
As the financial system melted down in 2008, they were rushed into government control.
they then grabbed property's by the 1000's and kept them off the market thus driving up prices all over the country-they need to be dismantled and a new agency or private company needs to step up to do this.
That’s where they’ve remained, until now, as Congress has failed to find a permanent solution for how to release them, and for what the future housing finance system should look like.
The current state of affairs is troubling for a few reasons. The two companies currently guarantee about 45% of all new mortgages, according to data compiled by the Urban Institute. They have almost no capital buffers, as a result of a strange experiment from legislators who tried to force themselves into taking action on the matter. And no one has any idea whether the future state will look a lot like the current one, or be drastically different.
Right now, most housing-watchers are focused on one idea in particular. It was mentioned in a report filed by the two enterprises’ regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, last week.
“The Enterprises’ current duopoly undercuts competition in the market,” said FHFA director Mark Calabria in the regulator’s annual report to Congress. “Increased competition would reduce market reliance on either Enterprise and enhance market stability, as well as benefit home buyers. To promote competition, Congress should authorize additional competitors and provide FHFA chartering authority similar to that of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.”
That idea isn’t new. It’s been contemplated ever since the two have been in conservatorship, and expressed more explicitly as a goal in a memo from the White House to the Treasury Department in March.
And it is important to note that it’s highly unlikely Congress will make any motion toward housing finance reform of any kind, least of all something as weighty as allowing a regulatory agency to charter a private company alongside Fannie and Freddie, with the ability to guarantee millions of mortgages, possibly with some implied government support in doing it.
So far, no company has publicly stated that they want to be a competitor to Fannie and Freddie in guaranteeing mortgages.
The credit rating agency Moody’s had this to say about the Calabria request:
Moody’s stated: “A severe reduction in either companies’ market share would reduce their centrality to the U.S. housing finance market. A materially lower market share would erode the creditworthiness of the two companies and could lead us to reduce our support assumptions for Fannie and Freddie. In addition, more competitors could lead to weaker underwriting standards or price competition, both credit negatives for the GSEs’ creditors.”
Moody's was responsible, along with Fitch, Morningstar etc for rating crappy home loan tranches-CMO/CDO's-at Triple A and allowing people like John Paulsen to profit immensely knowing that the debt would collapse-see the Michael Lewis Book "The Big Short'.
That’s essentially what happened during the bubble, when the two companies chased each other — and private lenders — to the bottom in a race for market share. It stands to reason that most housing finance participants would want to avoid such an outcome now.
Housing advocates are watching this issue closely.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-fannie-and-freddie-get-a-new-sibling-2019-06-17
every time I hear that song since last summer i say a little thank you beebo for that EPICNESS