New Jersey Administrative Code › Title 3 - BANKING › Chapter 25 - DEBT ADJUSTMENT AND CREDIT COUNSELING › Subchapter 1 - DEBT ADJUSTMENT AND CREDIT COUNSELING FEES › Section 3:25-1.1 - Definitions

Current through Register Vol. 56, No. 14, July 15, 2024
The following words and terms, when used in this chapter,
				  shall have the following meanings unless the context clearly indicates
				  otherwise.
"Acts" means the Debt Adjustment and Credit Counseling Act,
				  17:16G-1 et seq. and the New
				  Jersey Home Ownership Security Act of 2002, N.J.S.A. 46:10-22 et seq.
"Affiliated" means a relationship in which the high-cost home
				  loan credit counseling service is directly or indirectly controlled by, or
				  under the common control of, the directors, principal officers and/or any
				  shareholder of another company.
"Client" means an individual or a group of individuals
				  comprising a single family unit.
"Commissioner" means the Commissioner of Banking and
				  Insurance.
"Covered home loan" means a home loan in which the total
				  points and fees payable in connection with the loan, excluding either a
				  conventional prepayment penalty or not more than two bona fide discount points,
				  exceed four percent of the total loan amount, or 4.5 percent of the total loan
				  amount if the total loan amount is $ 40,000 or less, and 4.5 percent of the
				  total loan amount if the loan is insured by the Federal Housing Administration
				  or guaranteed by the Federal Department of Veterans Affairs, or a home loan
				  that is considered a high-cost home loan under the Home Ownership Security
				  Act.
"Credit counseling" means any guidance or educational program
				  or advice offered by a nonprofit social service agency or nonprofit consumer
				  credit counseling agency regarding the use of credit or debt management.
"Debt Adjuster Act" means the Debt Adjustment and Credit
				  Counseling Act,
				  17:16G-1 et seq.
"Debt adjustment" means either acting or offering to act for
				  a consideration as an intermediary between a debtor and his creditors for the
				  purpose of settling, compounding, or otherwise altering the terms of payment of
				  any debts of the debtor, or, to that end, receiving money or other property
				  from a debtor, or on behalf of the debtor, for payment to, or distribution
				  among the creditors of the debtor. Debt adjustment shall not include the
				  activities of:
1. An attorney-at-law
				of this State who is not principally engaged as a debt adjuster;
2. A person who is a regular full-time
				employee of a debtor and who acts as an adjuster of his or her employer's
				debts;
3. A person acting pursuant
				to any order or judgment of a court, or pursuant to authority conferred upon
				that person by any law of this State or the United States;
4. A person who is a creditor of the debtor
				or an agent of one or more creditors of the debtor and whose services in
				adjusting the debtor's debts are rendered without cost to the debtor;
				or
5. A person who, at the request
				of a debtor, arranges for or makes a loan to the debtor and who, at the
				authorization of the debtor, acts as an adjuster of the debtor's debts in the
				disbursement of the proceeds of the loan without compensation for the services
				rendered in adjusting those debts.
"Debtor" means a person or two or more persons who are
				  jointly and severally indebted.
"Department" means the Department of Banking and
				  Insurance.
"High-cost home loan" means a home loan for which the
				  principal amount of the loan does not exceed $ 350,000 as of 2003, adjusted
				  annually to include the last published increase of the housing component of the
				  national Consumer Price Index, New York-Northeastern New Jersey Region, and in
				  which the terms of the loan meet or exceed one or more of the thresholds as
				  defined in
				  46:10B-24. The annual adjustment
				  in the principal amount of the loan shall be reflected through a notice of
				  administrative change published in the New Jersey Register.
"High-cost home loan credit counseling" means the counseling
				  of a borrower on a high-cost home loan transaction which includes the financing
				  of points and fees in connection with the high-cost home loan.
"Home loan" means an extension of credit primarily for
				  personal, family or household purposes, including an open-end credit plan,
				  other than a reverse mortgage transaction, in which the loan is secured by a
				  mortgage or deed of trust on real estate in this State upon which there is
				  located or there is to be located a one to six family dwelling which is or will
				  be occupied by a borrower as the borrower's principal dwelling; or a security
				  interest in a manufactured home which is or will be occupied by a borrower as
				  the borrower's principal dwelling.
"Home Ownership Security Act" means the New Jersey Home
				  Ownership Security Act of 2002,
				  46:10B-22 et seq.
"Licensee" means a nonprofit social service or credit
				  counseling agency licensed pursuant to
				  17:16G-2.
"Non-affiliated third party agency" means a nonprofit social
				  service or credit counseling agency which is not under the influence, control,
				  or direction of any outside party such as a landowner, real estate broker,
				  lender, or consultant seeking to derive a profit or gain from the counseling
				  services.
"Nonprofit social service agency" or "nonprofit credit
				  counseling agency" means any corporation duly organized under Title 15 or 15A
				  of the New Jersey Statutes, and no part of the assets, income or profit of
				  which is distributable to, or enures to the benefit of, its members, directors
				  or officers, except to the extent permitted under the Debt Adjustment and
				  Credit Counseling Act,
				  17:16G-1 et seq.
"Points and fees" shall have the meaning as defined in the
				  New Jersey Home Ownership Security Act of 2002,
				  46:10B-22 et seq.
"Registrant" means an entity registered by the Department for
				  the purposes of providing high-cost home loan credit counseling.
"State" means any state of the United States, the District of
				  Columbia, any territory of the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, American
				  Samoa, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, the Virgin Islands and the
				  Northern Mariana Islands.