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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
One payment instead of five is a real benefit. It is an administrative benefit, and it is routinely sold as a financial one.
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.
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.
