Credit card debt is on the rise – not surprisingly considering that incomes have remained stagnant while daily expenses have increased over the past few years. With inflation on the rise, consumers need to be vigilant about creeping emotional expenses that make a mess of a well planned budget. The…
During the financial crisis, many banks, especially Bank of America, N.A., received credit under the National Mortgage Settlement Act when they wrote off an underwater second mortgage. This was very common in Florida because many 80/20 mortgages were written around 2004-2007 and values crashed in 2008. However, now years later,…
Part II: What can people do when they have private student loan debt? Private loans don’t have any government programs like federal loans do – payments are not based upon income, there is no debt forgiveness and no protections for someone who becomes disabled and cannot work. However, they…
The tax landscape for student loan forgiveness is constantly shifting. Earlier this year we blogged about disability discharges of federal student loan debt no longer considered taxable. Discharges in bankruptcy for either federal loans under a Brunner challenge or non-qualified private student loans that don’t meet the definitions for discharge…
Just now, I got off the phone with a very sophisticated potential client who is facing a garnishment for his federal loans. This was a very intelligent person and well respected in his field, but he didn’t really know much about how the student loan system worked. His closing comment…
Matt Taibbi with Rolling Stone, wrote a recent piece called “The Great College Loan Swindle” that outlines how we got here. It started with sales pitches that colleges make to kids – comparisons of salaries of those with high school diplomas to those with 4 yr degrees. The value of…
The Fraudsters radio show interviewed me this week for about an hour on how consumers can arm themselves and proactively protect their credit report, stop or fix violations, and obtain damages for violations under the TCPA, FDCPA, FCCPA and the FCRA. Here’s a direct link to the interview about how…
From time to time, our consumer law practice here in Tampa, Fl has had to shift gears to better use our state and federal laws that protect consumers faced with debt – and the inevitable robocalls and erroneous credit reports that come with that. The current state of robocalls is…
Florida is a state that allows professional licenses to be suspended for non-payment of federal student loans. We had a client who came to us last month after having her LPN license suspended. This is even worse than a garnishment. Rather than 15% of her wages being garnished, which is…
Today, a client elected to have us settle her defaulted federal student loans in full by payment from her 401k. While we normally don’t recommend using protected 401k monies to settle debt, this particular client makes too much for debt forgiveness. A settlement now will likely result in 10% reduction…