Pyramiding Late Fees
Pyramiding late fees refers to a creditor's practice of imposing a late fee when a consumer sends a timely payment in an amount sufficient to cover the regularly scheduled payment but insufficient to cover a prior unpaid late or delinquency fee. If the creditor allocates payments first to late fees, the consumer's payment only partially covers the currently scheduled payment, resulting in a new late fee. If the consumer continues to pay only the scheduled payment, late fees will continually be assessed (hence, the phrase pyramiding of late fees). Section 226.36(c)(1)(ii) requires that if a consumer sends a timely payment sufficient to cover the currently scheduled payment, the creditor cannot assess late fees.
Most financial institutions are familiar with this rule because pyramiding late fees is already prohibited by the credit practices rule issued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the federal banking agencies under the FTC Act.11 During the rulemaking, commenters questioned the need for this rule in light of these existing regulations. But the Board explained in the final rule that by “bringing the fee pyramiding rule under TILA Section 129(l)(2), state attorneys general would be able to enforce the rule through TILA, where currently they may be limited to enforcing the rule solely through state statutes (which statutes may not be uniform).â€12
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