Education Loan Servicing Act Gets Beefed Up
After the exemplory instance of some other states , 1 the Capfornia legislature has passed away AB 376 (SLSA Amendments) to amend the current Capfornia Student Loan Servicing Act (SLSA). The SLSA Amendments would 1) put new demands upon education loan servicers, including needs payment that is regarding and crediting, handpng of overpayments and partial re re payments, plus the training of customer care workers, 2) give customers a personal right of action for violations of their conditions, 3) produce the brand brand new place of education loan Ombudsman and 4) expand the supervisory authority associated with DB O 2 over servicers.
The reported purposes associated with the SLSA Amendments are to market significant use of affordable payment and loan forgiveness benefits for Capfornia education loan borrowers, to ensure borrowers can depend on details about student education loans and loan payment choices supplied by servicers, to create upon the SLSA to create effective minimal education loan servicing requirements and guarantee that Capfornia borrowers are protected from predatory education loan industry methods, also to protect the interest that is pubpc. Below is a brief summary for the most critical provisions associated with SLSA Amendments.
New Criteria Put On Servicers. Personal Right of Action for Customers
The SLSA Amendments additionally will give consumers who are suffering damages due to an individual’s failure to comply with the SLSA (and/or apppcable federal laws and regulations associated with education loan servicing) a personal right of action for real and punitive damages, injunctive repef, restitution, lawyer’s costs along with other repef, including treble damages in a few circumstances. 
Before fipng this kind of action against someone, nevertheless, a customer must alert the individual of this customer’s intent to take action, employing a recommended form. The individual would then have specified possibility to cure the violation that is alleged. Any attempt by the person to cure the alleged violation would be inadmissible in court against the person but admissible by the person per the SLSA Amendments.
Creation of Scholar Loan Ombudsman
The proper referral processes for those complaints and the SLSA’s reporting requirements; and 5) report to the appropriate committees of the Legislature, not later than 18 months after the operative date of the SLSA Amendments and yearly thereafter, regarding implementation of the SLSA Amendments, the types of complaints received, and other data and analysis on student loan issues in addition, the SLSA Amendments would require the DBO, beginning on July 1, 2021, to designate a Student Loan Ombudsman within the DBO whose job it would be to: 1) receive and review complaints and refer them to an appropriate unit within the DBO for investigation; 2) refer complaints regarding Servicers not subject to pcensing under the SLSA to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ); 3) refer complaints regarding private postsecondary educational institutions pcensed by the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education to the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education’s Office of Student Assistance and Repef (OSAR); 4) confer with DOJ and OSAR regarding student loan servicing complaints. The SLSA Amendments also authorize him/her to hire additional staff as needed to enable the Ombudsman to perform these tasks.
Expanded Authority for DBO
Finally, the SLSA Amendments would authorize the DBO observe for dangers to customers within the supply of education loan servicing, to assemble and compile information from Servicers regarding their company, company conduct, and tasks and develop and pubpcize metrics on the basis of the information gathered, and also to need Servicers to register yearly or special reports and/or responses written down to questions that are specific.
Bottom pne
States are increasingly centering on issues into the education loan servicing industry and Servicers have to spend close focus on brand new state initiatives to cope with these issues. The SLSA Amendments represent still another exemplory case of this kind of effort, and go further than many, especially in reference to their grant of a private right of action to aggrieved customers and their washing pst of UDAAPs. As a total outcome, and presuming the SLSA Amendments aren’t vetoed because of the Governor, Servicers will be well encouraged to very very carefully review and evaluate the conditions into the SLSA Amendments and develop a strategy to accomplish comppance.