Jun. 27, 2022
A Mortgage Statement May be Deemed a Communication Under the FDCPA and FCCPA
A SPECIAL REPORT by Tripp Scott's Chuck Tatelbaum and Corey Cohen
In a question of first impression in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit (which has jurisdiction over Florida, Georgia, and Alabama), the court was presented with the question of whether monthly mortgage statements were communications in connection with the collection of a debt under the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act (FCCPA). In classic lawyer language, the answer is “it depends.” Although this seemingly equivocal response may leave lenders and their professionals to speculate as to a particular result, in this instance, the court determined that it may be subject to both statutes because the monthly mortgage statement stated it was an attempt to collect a debt, asked for payment, and threatened a late fee if not paid timely. Since many mortgage and other loan statements have all or part of this verbiage as standard “boilerplate” language, the decision needs to be a wake-up call for lenders and their attorneys.
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