New York issues language access FAQs for debt collectors

State Issues State Regulators Debt Collection Language Access

On August 7, the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs (Department) issued FAQs addressing the language access amendments to the city’s debt collection rules, which became effective on June 27. As previously covered by InfoBytes, the new rules, among other things, require debt collectors to request and retain language preference information from each consumer and prohibit debt collectors from providing false, inaccurate, or incomplete translations to a consumer in the course of collecting a debt. The FAQs note that due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Department has extended the enforcement grace period to October 1. The FAQs cover, among other things, details regarding the (i) annual report requirements; (ii) the application of the rules to creditors collecting non-default debts; and (iii) statement requirements when debt collectors do not provide any language access services.