2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE EIGHT - Public Welfare and Charitable Institutions (§§ 1 — 1422) › Chapter 25 - Special Child Support Act (§§ 501 — 530) › § 528 - Measures to assure effective payment of support— Information about the obligor’s credit

(1) For the purposes of this section, “consumer credit collection agencies” shall mean any public or private natural or juridical person that through the collection of fees or any other form of payment, or through cooperative nonprofit work agreements is engaged regularly, in whole or in part, in the practice of compiling or evaluating information on the credit or other information about consumers in order to prepare or provide evaluations on consumers or third parties.
(2) Any consumer credit information agency which meets the criteria of subsection (1) of this section may request that the Administrator certify the information on indebted delinquent payments of persons who are under the obligation to pay child support. The Administrator may, motu proprio, inform the credit agency, after due notice to the obligor, of his/her intention of giving information on indebted delinquent child support payments.
(3) When the requesting party complies with the aforementioned requirements, and should the obligor in question owe more than one month of delinquent child support payments, the Administrator shall notify the obligor of the request or the intention of informing on the delinquent debt. He/She shall be appraised of his/her right to challenge the report, to introduce any evidence he/she may deem necessary to refute said report or to pay the debt. He/She shall also be advised that he/she has ten (10) days from the date he/she was notified of the intention of informing, in which to object or pay the existing debt. His/Her only defense shall be the inaccuracy of the amounts involved or the nonexistence of the debt or whether or not he/she is indeed the indebted obligor. If the obligor is delinquent in the payment of child support and the term of ten (10) days of having been notified that the credit agency may be informed has transpired, the Administrator must inform the credit agencies and make available the information on the delinquent debt to the agencies who so require, unless the obligor pays the debt in full or agrees to a payment plan and faithfully complies with the latter. The debtor shall be advised that if he/she fails to comply with the payment plan thus established, the debt shall be reported to the credit bureau without need for further notice.
Should the obligor object to the notice of the Administrator regarding the information on the delinquent debt, the latter shall evaluate the allegations and the evidence introduced by the obligor and determine whether it is in order to provide said information to the credit information agency. He shall furthermore notify the indebted obligor of his/her determination.
(4) The Administrator shall use the provisions of this section so that all obligors who appear in the Commonwealth Child Support Register and who meet the criteria established in subsection (3) safeguarding their right to object be included in a quarterly report to all the credit information agencies which conduct business in Puerto Rico as defined in subsection (1).
(5) Provided it is pertinent to establish, modify or enforce child support, if the information is not otherwise available, the Administration shall request a credit report on the obligor pursuant to § 604 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681 (b) (4) and (5).
History —Dec. 30, 1986, No. 5, p. 887, art. VII, sec. 29; Apr. 24, 1987, No. 16, p. 38, § 8; Aug. 17, 1994, No. 86, § 36; Dec. 18, 1997, No. 169, § 23; Aug. 1, 2003, No. 178, § 32.