Attorneys who regularly engage in collection work for community
associations have increasingly become
targets for lawsuits filed by professional consumer attorneys under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA” or “the Act”), 15 U.S.C. § 1692 et. seq., and analogous state laws.
These suits can be costly, distracting, and can create significant
tensions between HOA…

Can a communication from a collector violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1692, et. seq. (the “FDCPA”) if it never asks the debtor to pay any money? What exactly does the term “debt collection” mean in the context of the FDCPA? These seemingly
simple questions have divided
the circuit courts,…

Attorneys and other entities
that regularly engage
in collection work for community associations may be subject to the requirements of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C.
§ 1692 et. seq., as well as analogous state laws governing the consumer collection process. Practitioners should
be aware of numerous FDCPA decisions issued during the past…

         Can a bank
be sued for acting as a “debt collector” under the California Rosenthal Act?  You are probably tempted to answer “yes” it
can, because you know the Act defines a “debt collector” to include an entity
that is collecting on behalf of itself or on behalf of third parties. …

     Grappling
with the meaning of the so-called “meaningful involvement” doctrine is one of
the most elusive and frustrating compliance challenges for collection attorneys
and their clients.  What exactly must a
collection attorney do to ensure they are “meaningfully involved” in a file
before sending a collection letter to a consumer?  When, if ever,…

(This post is adopted from the materials presented at the CAI Law Seminar in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 20, 2017)

Demystifying the
FDCPA Class Action For HOA Attorneys

      Consumer
attorneys have been filing FDCPA class actions against collection attorneys for
decades, and the pace of those filings has increased sharply in…

When collectors
get sued in an FDCPA action, they face a steep uphill battle.  Courts apply the very pro-consumer “least
sophisticated debtor” standard when evaluating a collector’s communications,
and most violations of the Act are “strict liability” – meaning the debtor can
win the case without proving the collector intended to violate the
statute.  Recently,…