| Volume 125 Number 4 |
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The People’s Lawyer’s Tip of the Day
When it come to mortgages, members of the military are treated differently. Only a judge can authorize a foreclosure on a protected service member’s home and can act only after a hearing where the military homeowner is represented. The law also caps a protected service member’s mortgage rate, as well as rates on all other credit, at 6 percent. Click here for more.
Federal Government Exempt from Robocall Laws
The Federal Communications Commission ruled that the federal government is exempt from consumer protection laws that prevent unwanted robocalls. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act bars businesses from making numerous autodialed or prerecorded calls to a person’s cellphone and home phone. However, this law does not apply to the federal government and contractors working on the government’s behalf. The ruling was based on the the statute's language that "person" does not include the government. Contractors hired by members of Congress can robocall individuals to participate in town halls, government researchers can place autodialed calls to the cellphones of survey respondents, and contractors can make similar calls to offer information about social security. Click here for more.
Your Money
Determining whether you can retire early includes several calculations that include your savings, expected social security income, and standard of living. Given today's long life spans, you'll have to divide your savings by more years. You don't want to deplete your savings too early in retirement. Also, factor in other sources of retirement income, such as part-time work, a reverse mortgage, or home equity. Spending estimates are also important as retirees tend to spend more money after they retire, at least initially. Click here for more.
For the Lawyers
A consumer who receives incidental services, such as automatic withdrawal, from a bank is not a consumer under the DTPA. The plaintiff's ex-husband had borrowed money from Wells Fargo with a promissory note to purchase a home. After plaintiff was awarded the home in the divorce proceedings, she defaulted on the loan. She sued Wells Fargo under the DPTA for its failure to make automatic withdrawals from her account to pay the loan. Those "services" cannot form the basis of a DTPA claim because they are "incidental to the loan" and would "serve no purpose apart from facilitating [the] mortgage loan." Villarreal v. Wells Fargo Bank, 814 F.3d 763 (5th Cir. 2016). Click here for more.