CFPB Extends SNPRM Comment Period Again Due to COVID

Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it will once again extend the comment period to the Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (SNPRM) for time-barred debts. The new deadline for comments is now August 4, 2020. 

Originally, SNPRM comments were due on May 4, 2020. The CFPB issued a notice extending the deadline to June 5 due to concerns that the COVID-19 pandemic would prevent stakeholders from providing meaningful comments. Similar reasoning was used for the most recent extension.

The SNPRM—which was predicted due to the CFPB's placeholder in the time-barred debt section of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and the disclosure survey conducted by the CFPB in 2019—lays out requirements for debt collectors who are collecting on accounts that are barred by the applicable statute of limitations. In other words, these proposed rules would control accounts for which the creditor's time period to sue the consumer to collect the debt has passed.

The requirements include prohibitions on filing suit on time-barred debt accounts and certain disclosures that a debt collector must make depending on the laws of the applicable jurisdiction.