Maine Student Loan Bill of Rights

The Maine Student Loan Bill of Rights provides protections for Maine residents who have student loans. The servicer of a student loan is often different from the lender.

A student loan servicer must:

• Acknowledge written communication from a borrower within 10 days and respond within 30 days;
• Confirm how borrowers would like to have overpayments or prepayments applied;
• Apply partial payments in a way that minimizes late fees or negative impacts on a borrower’s credit history;
• When transferring a loan to another servicer, ensure a borrower still receives any benefits granted, and transfer all information to the new servicer within certain time periods;
• Evaluate a borrower for eligibility for an income-driven repayment program before placing the borrower in forbearance or default.

A student loan servicer cannot:

• Attempt to mislead a borrower;
• Provide unfair, deceptive, or misrepresented information related to the servicing of a loan;
• Make false statements or omit material facts for applications, information or reports;
• Misapply payments to a student loan, either knowingly or negligently;
• Provide inaccurate information to a consumer reporting agency either knowingly or negligently, and cannot fail to report both favorable and unfavorable payment history in annual reports;
• Refuse to communicate with authorized representatives of a borrower;
• Misrepresent the availability of student loan forgiveness programs the servicer has reason to know the borrower is eligible for.