Consumer Federation of America Urges Practical Ways to Provide Language Assistance to Borrowers With Limited English Proficiency

The Consumer Federation of America, along with various other organizations, joined a letter encouraging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to consider, as part of the proposed Regulation X mortgage servicing rule, practical ways to provide language assistance to borrowers with limited English proficiency.

The advocates support the Bureau's efforts to provide language access in the mortgage market but are concerned about the marketing-related component of the Bureau's proposed LEP requirements, in which, upon borrower request, a servicer must provide translation or interpretation services for any language the servicer knows or should have known was used in marketing to the borrower. They believe that this particular standard is too broad and operationally cumbersome for servicers to execute; as a result, it has the potential to constrain, rather than expand, language access.

The letter encourages the Bureau to remove the marketing section and pursue operationally feasible policies that will enhance assistance to borrowers with limited English proficiency.