Is a personal loan fixed or variable? Check the disclosure
Usually fixed, but your Truth in Lending disclosure settles it. The four things it must say if the rate can rise, and what one point costs.
No. 01 Lead story
How does a personal loan affect your credit score?
A personal loan reaches your credit score at four stages: application, disbursal, repayment and payoff. Each one mapped to FICO's published weights.
Story index
23 stories on file Can I refinance a personal loan? Check the prepayment box
Yes, if a new lender approves you. Where your loan disclosure states any prepayment charge, plus a worked table on origination fees and break-even.
How long after paying off a car loan do you get the title?
Toyota, Ally, U.S. Bank and Florida Central CU publish their own title timelines. Side by side, split by paper and electronic title, with a worked count.
How to calculate per diem interest on a loan payoff
Per diem is balance times note rate, divided by the note's day-count year. A worked table on 365 and 360 days, and how to carry a payoff quote forward.
Can a lender charge a fee for a payoff statement?
On a high-cost mortgage, Regulation Z bars most payoff statement fees. On other loans the note, the loan's owner and state law decide. The texts, read.
How long does a lender have to release a lien after payoff?
Texas gives a lender 60 days from a correct payoff to release the lien, or 30 days from a written request sent within 20 days. Read from the bill, worked.
What does the good-through date mean on a payoff statement?
The good-through date is the day a payoff quote is accurate as of. What Reg Z says, how long quotes last, and what a late payoff costs, worked.
Overpay Your Loan Payoff Amount? Where the Extra Money Goes
The loan closes and the surplus is yours to reclaim: escrow within 20 days (weekends, holidays excluded) under Reg X; the rest per lender policy.
Why is my loan payoff amount higher than my balance?
The statement shows principal; the payoff adds daily interest and fees. The Regulation Z text, per-diem arithmetic at 6.50%, and the pre-2015 FHA rule.
How long does a lender have to send a payoff statement?
Seven business days after a written request, for a loan secured by a home, under Regulation Z 1026.36(c)(3). A phone call does not start it.
For-profit debt settlement against a nonprofit debt management plan, assessed
Two paid routes sold with one vocabulary. Assessed against the fee rules in 16 CFR 310.4(a)(5) and the arithmetic of what the rule calls the amount saved.
Where a payment above the card minimum actually goes
On a US credit card, the excess over the required minimum is not applied wherever the issuer likes. Regulation Z sends it to the highest-rate balance first — with two exceptions that catch people out.
Auto-refinance marketplaces: Caribou against RateGenius, assessed
Two companies that both lead with a monthly saving. Assessed on what each one actually discloses — figures, fees, licences — with the arithmetic the headline leaves out.
Regulators say more than 4,200 insured borrowers were charged for force-placed insurance
A multistate settlement announced on 12 August names NewRez LLC and a $15.5m total. The mechanism underneath it — how a premium the borrower never chose reaches the monthly payment — is worth reading whoever services your loan.
The Tiered Standard plan against the ten-year Standard, assessed
The plan a borrower now gets by not choosing stretches the term as the balance rises. Assessed on the regulation, with the cost of the extra years worked out and the tier edges shown.
A draft FHA rule would let arrears skip the second lien
The Reinstatement Advance Payment demonstration would secure caught-up arrears under the existing first mortgage rather than a recorded subordinate one. Feedback closes on 3 September.
The Repayment Assistance Plan against IBR, assessed
A new federal plan promises a balance that never grows. Assessed on the published regulation: how each plan sets a payment, what happens to unpaid interest, and what thirty years of payments costs against twenty.
Europe's common floor for early repayment arrives in November
A dated change to the one clause mid-loan borrowers care about most: the right to settle early, and what a lender is allowed to charge for it.
Hardship and forbearance programmes, assessed
Every major lender has one. Assessed on what they actually offer, what they cost in interest and credit-file terms, and why they are so hard to find before you need them.
Consolidation marketing outpaces consolidation arithmetic
One payment instead of five is a real benefit. It is an administrative benefit, and it is routinely sold as a financial one.
Debt consolidation, assessed with the arithmetic shown
The product's benefit is real and its cost is arithmetic. Here is a worked illustration, with every assumption stated, showing exactly where a lower monthly payment gets expensive.
Early-settlement rules are the least-read clause in consumer credit
Paying a loan off ahead of schedule is a right in many markets, and it rarely works the way borrowers expect. The clause governing it is in every agreement and read by almost nobody.
About Repay Desk
Repay Desk — Loans and repayment, explained plainly. Every story indexed, numbered, and timestamped.
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