Which place’s debt rules apply—and who can help?

D030 Research Report — State Debt Laws, Northeast

Assignment: SettleADebt.com shared research library assignment D030

Area: A066 — state/local/territorial/tribal debt-law rules

Assigned jurisdictions: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania

Baseline and check date: October 22, 2026, America/Los_Angeles

Research character: reusable public legal research, not advice about any particular borrower or debt

Status vocabulary: Verified means the operative proposition was supported by current official material read in this investigation; Partial means part of the proposition was verified but a material detail was not; Unresolved means publication should stop on that point until identified primary authority is opened and checked; Excluded means outside this D030 Northeast assignment or deliberately not used as evidence.

Scope, method, and high-level findings

The most important conclusion is that these nine states are not interchangeable debt-settlement markets. Some expressly license debt-adjustment or debt-settlement activity and impose consumer fee formulas; some regulate only particular forms of debt management; New Jersey currently states that only a nonprofit corporation can qualify for a debt-adjuster license; and New York has active legislation that would expressly bring debt-settlement/debt-relief companies into the budget-planner regime, which is significant precisely because those bills are proposals rather than current law as of the October 22, 2026 baseline. 1

Several especially publication-worthy rules emerged. Maine caps a settlement intermediary's fee at 15% of the amount by which each settled debt is reduced, on top of a maximum $75 initial fee. Rhode Island has a much more elaborate statutory settlement-fee formula, including a setup-fee ceiling, a recurring-fee ceiling, and settlement compensation tied to the amount of principal saved. New Hampshire requires debt-adjustment licensing and currently charges a $500 nonrefundable application fee for a principal office and $500 for each branch. Vermont expressly defines debt adjustment broadly enough to include negotiating creditor concessions. New Jersey's current DOBI FAQ says only a nonprofit corporation can be licensed as a debt adjuster. 1

Limitation and revival rules also differ materially. Maine bars a debt collector from commencing a collection action more than six years after the consumer's last activity unless a shorter Maine limitation applies, and the statute specifically addresses time-barred debt. New Hampshire's general personal-action period is three years while actions on judgments and certain sealed obligations have a twenty-year period. New York gives consumer-credit defendants a three-year limitations period and expressly provides that payment, oral or written affirmation, or other activity after expiration does not revive or extend that expired period. 2

Exemptions can change settlement leverage dramatically. Maine protects up to $80,000 of qualifying residence equity, increases that to $160,000 where minor dependents have their principal residence with the debtor, and now provides a special principal-residence exemption from attachment and execution based on qualifying medical debt. New Hampshire's homestead statute provides a $400,000 exemption for one person and imposes a $550,000 aggregate limit where multiple persons claim interests, with extraordinary protection for certain debts directly resulting from terminal or catastrophic illness or injury. Rhode Island provides an automatic $500,000 homestead but expressly excludes several important categories, including voluntary mortgage liens and certain debts owed to regulated financial institutions. 3

There are equally important limits on what can responsibly be published from this research. I did not convert proposed bills into law; did not use PDF material as substantive evidence where the PDF had not been rendered through the required screenshot process; did not infer a universal debt-settlement percentage, completion timeline, credit-score effect, tax exclusion, guarantor release, or creditor willingness to settle; and did not treat regulator licensing pages as substitutes for primary statutes when the question required the statutory rule. Those gaps are marked below rather than silently filled.

No issuer-specific contract proposition is made in this report, so no creditor card agreement or loan agreement was required. Any future article saying a named creditor allows settlement, requires arbitration, waives deficiency, applies a particular APR after default, or releases a guarantor would require the actual governing agreement for the relevant product/version and cannot be derived from these state statutes.

Federal and jurisdictional boundaries that apply across the state analysis

Debt-relief fee timing is not determined solely by a state's numerical fee cap. For debt-relief services subject to the federal Telemarketing Sales Rule, 16 C.F.R. §310.4(a)(5) prohibits requesting or receiving the debt-relief fee until the rule's prerequisites are satisfied. The rule also requires that a customer using a qualifying dedicated account be able to withdraw without penalty and receive remaining funds, other than properly earned fees, within seven business days after a withdrawal request. A state statute can therefore determine how much a provider may charge while federal law separately controls when a covered telemarketed provider may take it. D030-C001. 4

Debt validity should be separated from inability to pay. Regulation F, 12 C.F.R. §1006.34, requires covered debt collectors to provide validation information either in the initial communication or generally within five days afterward; §1006.38 protects the validation period from communications that overshadow the consumer's dispute and original-creditor rights. A valid defense can concern identity, ownership, amount, limitations, payment, bankruptcy, or service—not merely lack of funds. New York's court self-help material, for example, separately identifies defenses such as limitations, identity theft, mistaken identity, payment, disputed amount, bankruptcy, and lack of a business relationship. D030-C002. 5

Cancellation-of-debt tax is a separate federal analysis. IRS Publication 4681 explains that canceled debt can be income but that exclusions such as bankruptcy and insolvency may apply; Form 982 is used in appropriate circumstances to report exclusions under Internal Revenue Code §108. A lender's issuance or nonissuance of a Form 1099-C is not, by itself, a safe substitute for analyzing the tax rule. IRS states that applicable financial entities generally file Form 1099-C when they cancel $600 or more of covered debt, but that reporting threshold is not a universal rule that the first $599 of canceled debt is tax-free. D030-C003. 6

Collateral and personal liability are different. The U.S. Courts' Chapter 7 materials expressly warn that secured creditors may retain rights against collateral even after a bankruptcy discharge eliminates personal liability on a dischargeable debt. Consequently, a debt-relief article should never imply that settling or discharging an individual's personal obligation automatically extinguishes a mortgage, vehicle lien, security interest, or other lien. D030-C004. 7

Guarantors and co-debtors need their own analysis. Chapter 13 contains a federal co-debtor stay for qualifying consumer debts under 11 U.S.C. §1301, but that is a bankruptcy protection with conditions, not a general rule that settlement of the principal debtor releases a co-signer or guarantor. No generic nonbankruptcy guarantor-release rule was verified for these nine states in D030; articles should therefore condition any guarantor statement on the contract, settlement release, and applicable surety law. D030-C005. 8

Business debt is not automatically covered. Many of the rules below are expressly framed around a consumer, natural person, or personal/family/household obligation. Federal FDCPA/Regulation F and state consumer-credit or debt-adjustment statutes should not be mechanically applied to corporate, commercial, or business-purpose obligations. The Pennsylvania regulator, for example, defines the licensed debt-settlement service it administers around an individual's unsecured debt for personal, family, or household expenses; New York's special three-year provision is expressly for a “consumer credit transaction.” D030-C006. 9

Local, territorial, and tribal boundary hold. D030 was assigned the nine Northeast jurisdictions above, not the other 41 states or D.C. Municipal licensing can add another layer—New York legislative materials, for example, discuss existing municipal collector licensing while proposing statewide licensing—but municipal-code verification was not completed here and should not be generalized from a sponsor memorandum. No tribal code, tribal-court rule, tribal-state compact, territorial code, or tribe-specific sovereign-immunity authority was researched in this D030 subset. Therefore no statement in this report should be read as establishing state-law jurisdiction over a tribe, tribal enterprise, tribal member, reservation transaction, or territorial transaction. D030-C007; publication hold. 10

Official-source matrix and state-by-state findings

The matrix is deliberately strict: where a current dollar amount, revival doctrine, local overlay, or fee rule was not verified from suitable official authority, the cell says so.

State-specific operative notes

Connecticut. The strongest current publication proposition is that Connecticut has a dedicated debt-adjuster licensing regime in Chapter 669 and a separate state consumer-collection conduct regime. The licensing question must be analyzed by what the business actually does; a statement that “any company negotiating debt is automatically a Connecticut debt adjuster” should be withheld until §§36a-655 through 36a-663 are read together with exemptions. The same caution applies to fees: regulator application/license charges are not synonymous with what a provider may charge a consumer. D030-C010–C012. 11

A Connecticut litigation article should also distinguish the limitations period for the underlying claim from the lifespan/enforcement of a judgment. Chapter 926 contains both types of provisions. “The debt expires after X years” is therefore poor drafting: a limitations defense to a new lawsuit, an existing judgment, lien duration, postjudgment execution, and voluntary payment are different questions. 13

Maine. Maine is one of the clearest states for a debt-settlement fee calculator. For a provider acting as an intermediary to alter or settle a consumer's payment obligation, §6174-A(2)(B) allows a reasonable fee not exceeding 15% of the amount by which the consumer's debt is reduced as part of each settlement, not 15% of enrolled debt or 15% of the amount paid to the creditor. The statute separately caps the one-time initial/setup fee at $75. D030-C013–C014. 1

Maine's time-barred-debt rule is especially relevant operationally. Section 11013 says a debt collector may not commence a collection action more than six years after the consumer's last activity when that is the applicable period and may not sue when it knows or reasonably should know the action is barred. The state statute therefore matters at the litigation-decision stage, not merely as a disclosure rule. D030-C016. 47

For judgment exposure, Maine's current §4422 gives useful, debt-specific distinctions. Ordinary residence equity has dollar caps, but a principal place of residence is separately protected from attachment and execution based on “medical debt” as defined in Title 32. That protection should be applied only after verifying that the underlying obligation fits the incorporated statutory definition of medical debt. D030-C017–C018. 17

Massachusetts. Massachusetts should not be placed in a licensing chart by copying the rules for “debt collectors” into a “debt settlement company” column. The Division of Banks licenses debt collectors, while creditor collection practices are also regulated by M.G.L. c.93, §49 and the Attorney General's 940 CMR 7.00 rules. D030 did not find a current primary provision that supports a blanket statement that every negotiation-only debt-relief provider holds the same license. This remains a licensing-publication hold rather than a presumed exemption. D030-C019–C020. 19

Massachusetts' official law guide states a six-year period for consumer-related debt and links to the statutory framework. That is adequate for a general educational statement with conditions, but an account-level calculator still needs debt type, accrual date, governing law, litigation history, payment/acknowledgment history, and whether a judgment already exists. D030-C021. 20

New Hampshire. New Hampshire expressly regulates “debt adjustment services” under RSA chapter 399-D, and the current application charge is straightforward: $500 for the principal office and $500 for each branch. That number is a licensing cost, not a consumer-service fee; current consumer charges under the debt-settlement provisions should be separately extracted before any fee-comparison article is published. D030-C023. 23

The state's exemption structure can materially change judgment collectability. RSA 480:1's $400,000 individual homestead is much larger than the ordinary Maine cap, and the multi-interest aggregate rule is $550,000. Those are exemption amounts, not a guarantee that a home cannot be foreclosed: consensual mortgage rights and statutory exceptions must be analyzed separately. The execution chapter also contains a procedure for asserting the homestead before sale. D030-C026. 26

Rhode Island. Rhode Island offers another strong fee-calculator candidate. Section 19-14.8-23 distinguishes plans aimed at reducing finance/late charges from settlement plans and forbids charging before an agreement is signed. For the former, the setup ceiling is $50 and monthly service is capped at the lesser of $10 times remaining creditors and $50. For settlement plans, the statute uses a distinct setup and settlement-compensation structure; any calculator should retain the exact statutory ordering and credit prior fees as the section requires instead of marketing one headline percentage. D030-C028–C029. 48

Rhode Island's $500,000 automatic homestead is also easy to misstate. The statutory exceptions are unusually consequential: mortgages and other voluntary liens are among the excluded claims, and the statute contains additional exceptions involving taxes, purchase obligations, family support, Medicaid reimbursement, and certain regulated financial-institution debts. “RI protects $500,000 from creditors” without those qualifications would be materially misleading. D030-C031. 30

Vermont. Vermont's definition is broad enough that the activity—not the marketing label—is what matters. Chapter 83 includes agreements to distribute, supervise, coordinate, negotiate or control payment among creditors and intermediary services to obtain creditor concessions. The regulator's current initial application amount is $750, corresponding to the statutory $250 license fee plus $500 application/investigation fee. D030-C033. 32

Vermont also gives debtors explicit contract-exit rights in the debt-adjuster statute. The chapter contains required disclosures, a three-business-day rescission provision, and a right to cancel later without a cancellation premium or penalty. Providers are restricted from several conflicts, including specified purchases of the debtor's obligation and taking certain security interests. Those requirements are highly suitable for a state compliance checklist once the consumer-fee section receives a second pass. 33

For litigation, Vermont Judiciary's eight-year judgment statement and renewal-before-expiration procedure matter separately from the limitations period for bringing the original claim. Its small-claims material also gives a materially lower $5,000 ceiling for consumer-credit and medical-debt claims than the ordinary $10,000 ceiling. D030-C034–C036. 34

A temporal warning is required: Vermont Judiciary posted a rules order on October 6, 2026 with an effective date of January 1, 2027 touching the debt/small-claims/foreclosure area. Because D030's baseline is October 22, 2026, that future-effective material must not be substituted for the rules actually in force on the baseline date. D030-C049. 49

New Jersey. New Jersey presents the strongest state-level market-access warning in this group. The current DOBI FAQ states that only a nonprofit corporation can qualify for a debt-adjuster license, and DOBI's licensing page defines regulated activity to include acting for consideration as an intermediary to settle, compound, or otherwise alter the terms of a debtor's debts. A for-profit settlement provider should therefore not treat New Jersey as a routine registration state based on a multistate license chart. D030-C037. 50

Current DOBI operational guidance also defeats reliance on old legislative proposals that contemplated changing the market structure unless a later enacted law can be produced. The Department's 2026 FAQ remains explicit about nonprofit eligibility. The underlying N.J.A.C. 3:25 fee provisions require a separate current-rule extraction before a consumer-fee number is published. 51

New York. The distinction between current law and active proposal is critical. S3224 and A1427 were still described by the Legislature as active proposals seeking to make debt-settlement/debt-relief companies expressly qualify as budget planners and to impose a more detailed licensing regime. The proposal text contains detailed consumer protections, but none of those proposed provisions should be presented as law on October 22, 2026. D030-C040. 39

New York's limitation/revival rule is, by contrast, exceptionally clear current law. CPLR 214-i provides three years for a covered consumer-credit action and says that after expiration, later payment, written or oral affirmation, or other activity does not revive or extend the limitation. That creates a material difference from jurisdictions where acknowledgment or payment may affect limitations. D030-C042. 41

CPLR 5231 also makes “25% wage garnishment” an incomplete statement. An income execution is ordinarily limited to 10% of gross income, while disposable earnings are additionally protected by the greater applicable minimum-wage floor and the 25%-of-disposable-earnings ceiling. The allowed amount is effectively constrained by all applicable tests. D030-C043. 42

The homestead statute requires similar care. CPLR 5206 still displays historical statutory base figures of $150,000, $125,000, and $75,000 depending on county group, but Article 52 expressly includes a cost-of-living adjustment provision, CPLR 5253. A 2026 article must obtain the current adjustment rather than copying the base values from §5206. D030-C044; publication hold on current dollars. 43

Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania distinctly licenses debt-management and debt-settlement services. DoBS says debt-settlement service means acting as an intermediary between an individual and one or more unsecured creditors to obtain concessions involving a principal reduction on personal, family, or household debt, and says those applicants/licensees use NMLS. The statute is the Debt Settlement Services Act, Act 118 of 2014. D030-C046. 9

The official consolidated Title 42 source identifies §5525 as Pennsylvania's four-year limitation provision. That permits an educational “four-year contract limitations framework” statement, but not an automated “four years after charge-off” result: accrual is a legal question, and judgments, tolling, choice of law, installment obligations, and revival need separate rules. D030-C047. 45

Pennsylvania Courts provides a standardized civil complaint for use before magisterial district judges and notes that filing and service costs are charged. D030 did not verify one uniform dollar amount because local/service costs can differ; a calculator should pull the current court schedule instead of freezing an old number. D030-C048. 46

Worked examples, comparisons, and practical research applications

Maine settlement-fee example

Assume a Maine resident consumer has one unsecured account with a $20,000 balance and a covered debt-management provider acting as settlement intermediary obtains a creditor agreement for $12,000.

The statutory debt reduction is:

[ $20,000-$12,000=$8,000 ]

Section 6174-A(2)(B)'s maximum settlement-intermediary fee is:

[ $8,000\times15%=$1,200 ]

The provider could also potentially charge the separately authorized one-time setup fee, but no more than $75, producing a state-law headline maximum of $1,275 in this simplified example if all statutory conditions for both charges are satisfied. It would be wrong to calculate 15% of the original $20,000 ($3,000) because the Maine statute measures the percentage against the amount reduced, not enrolled balance. D030-C014. 1

If the service is also a covered telemarketed debt-relief service under the federal TSR, the Maine number does not authorize advance collection. The provider must separately satisfy 16 C.F.R. §310.4(a)(5)'s timing conditions before requesting or receiving the settlement fee. D030-C001. 4

Rhode Island settlement-plan example

Assume an individual enters a Rhode Island settlement plan with $20,000 of principal and the creditor accepts $12,000. The gross principal reduction is:

[ $20,000-$12,000=$8,000 ]

Rhode Island's settlement compensation provision permits compensation up to 30% of the excess of the principal amount over the amount paid the creditor, subject to crediting the statutory setup/monthly fees as the section directs. Before those credits, the 30% component is:

[ $8,000\times30%=$2,400 ]

The settlement-plan setup charge is capped at the lesser of $400 or 4% of the debt at plan inception; here:

[ 4%\times $20,000=$800 ]

so the setup ceiling is $400. Monthly service charges are capped at $10 times creditors remaining, but never more than $50 in a month. The precise final compensation therefore depends on how many monthly/setup fees were actually charged and must follow §19-14.8-23's crediting rule rather than simply adding every ceiling together. D030-C029. 52

New York wage-execution example

Use a hypothetical $16/hour applicable minimum wage solely to demonstrate CPLR 5231; this does not assert that $16 is the current minimum wage for every New York location. Assume weekly gross income of $1,000 and weekly disposable earnings of $800.

The three relevant constraints are:

[ 10%\text{ of gross} = $100 ]

[ 25%\text{ of disposable} = $200 ]

[ 30\times $16=$480\text{ protected floor} ]

Disposable earnings exceed the assumed floor by:

[ $800-$480=$320 ]

The $100 10%-of-gross figure is lower than both $200 and $320, so the hypothetical income execution would be limited to $100/week, before considering support orders, medical-debt restrictions, or another applicable protection. That is why a tool saying “New York garnishment is 25%” would be defective. D030-C043. 42

Maine and New Hampshire homestead comparison

Assume a homeowner has a home worth $300,000 and a consensual mortgage balance of $180,000, producing:

[ $300,000-$180,000=$120,000\text{ equity} ]

For a Maine debtor with minor dependents whose principal residence is the home, §4422's $160,000 qualifying cap exceeds the $120,000 equity; in this simplified unsecured judgment scenario there is no equity above the stated exemption. A consensual mortgage is a different secured claim and this calculation does not erase the mortgage. D030-C018. 53

For a qualifying New Hampshire individual, the ordinary $400,000 homestead amount likewise exceeds $120,000. Again, the conclusion concerns exposure to the judgment process under the homestead statute; it does not convert a secured mortgage into unsecured debt or bar enforcement of every statutory exception. D030-C026. 26

Federal insolvency-tax example after settlement

Assume a creditor cancels $8,000. Immediately before cancellation, the taxpayer has $100,000 of total liabilities and $96,000 fair-market value of assets. Simplifying away other §108 categories:

[ $100,000-$96,000=$4,000\text{ insolvency} ]

The insolvency exclusion can potentially shelter canceled-debt income only up to the amount of insolvency, so $4,000 may qualify for the insolvency exclusion and the remaining $4,000 may remain includible absent another exclusion. The taxpayer may need Form 982. This is not a statement that every $8,000 settlement creates $4,000 of tax—taxable income, tax due, exclusions, basis/attribute reduction, and the relevant tax year are separate questions. D030-C003. 6

Limitation-calendar example and its limits

For New York, suppose a covered consumer-credit cause of action accrued on January 15, 2024 and, solely for the example, no tolling or other exception applies. CPLR 214-i's three-year period would lead to a nominal expiration date of January 15, 2027. A payment on February 1, 2027 would not revive the already expired limitations period under §214-i. D030-C042. 41

That example should not be turned into an account calculator that uses “last payment,” “charge-off date,” or “date sent to collections” interchangeably. Accrual itself must be determined under the governing cause of action and contract; choice-of-law provisions, earlier acceleration, a prior judgment, bankruptcy tolling, and procedural history can change the result.

Meaningful cross-state comparisons

The strongest draft article/tool opportunities from this assignment are a Maine debt-settlement statutory-fee calculator, Rhode Island debt-settlement statutory-fee calculator, New York CPLR 5231 wage-execution calculator with locality/date-specific minimum-wage input, Maine/NH/RI homestead comparison tool, state debt-relief market-access checklist, and time-barred-debt/revival comparison page. The New York homestead calculator is a publication hold until the applicable CPLR 5253 indexed figures are independently captured; New Jersey debt-adjuster fees are a hold until the current N.J.A.C. 3:25 text is opened; and no Northeast-wide judgment-interest calculator should be built from D030 because most state interest formulas still need dedicated verification.

Source register

“Opened” below means the HTML source was directly opened or its substantive body was returned and read. “Search extraction” means the official search result returned enough operative text to support the specified claim, but no separate open succeeded. “Discovery-only” means it was located but not used for a substantive legal proposition. All were checked October 22, 2026 unless stated otherwise.

Discovery-only / deliberately excluded evidence: Maine foreclosure-diversion PDFs were located but not used because they were not screenshot-rendered; Rhode Island Superior Court Rules were similarly located as a PDF but not used for substantive claims; the CFPB's 354-page Regulation F rulemaking PDF was not needed because current HTML regulation text was available. This avoids treating a search snippet or an unseen PDF page as verified legal text. 73

Material claim register

Coverage, publication holds, and researcher self-check

Coverage table

Publication holds and open questions

The following should remain publication holds, not be filled from secondary charts:

1. Connecticut: exact 2026 consumer debt-adjuster fee limitations; current wage/bank exemption formulas; foreclosure/repo workflow and judgment-interest rules.
2. Massachusetts: whether and exactly when a pure debt-settlement negotiator needs a specific state license; current indexed homestead amount; current attachment amounts and foreclosure cure/sale rules.
3. New Hampshire: current §399-D:16 consumer fee formula and full ch.358-C collection checklist.
4. Rhode Island: ordinary debt limitations/revival and exact wage-garnishment interaction.
5. Vermont: debt-adjuster consumer fee ceiling; precise wage/bank/homestead numbers; effect of the January 1, 2027 rule changes after they become effective.
6. New Jersey: current N.J.A.C. 3:25 consumer fees, limitations/revival, homestead status, exemption formulas, Fair Foreclosure Act deadlines and current postjudgment rate.
7. New York: current indexed CPLR 5253 exemption figures; current bank-account floor; CPLR 5004 consumer-debt judgment rate; exact reach of existing budget-planner law to a negotiation-only provider; RPAPL foreclosure process.
8. Pennsylvania: Act 118 consumer fee provisions, FCEUA conduct requirements, exact wage/bank exemptions, judgment revival/lien rules and secured foreclosure/repo procedure.

Those holds are material because a wrong answer can change market eligibility, the lawful fee, whether a lawsuit is timely, whether a consumer's wages/home/bank account are reachable, or whether a proposed rule is being presented prematurely as current law.

Article and tool opportunities approved by current evidence

The evidence is strong enough now for a Maine fee-calculation article/tool tied to 32 M.R.S. §6174-A; a Rhode Island §19-14.8-23 fee explainer with a properly sequenced calculator; a New York CPLR 214-i time-barred-debt/nonrevival explainer; a New York CPLR 5231 wage-execution formula tool that requires the user to supply the correct date/location minimum wage rather than hard-coding one; a Maine/New Hampshire/Rhode Island homestead comparison emphasizing lien exceptions; a New Jersey market-access warning explaining the current nonprofit-only DOBI position; and a Vermont small-claims comparison distinguishing the $10,000 ordinary ceiling from the $5,000 consumer-credit/medical ceiling. 1

A broad “Northeast debt-settlement laws ranked” article should be held until Massachusetts licensing, New Jersey fee rules, Vermont consumer fees, Connecticut consumer fees, New York budget-planner applicability, and Pennsylvania Act 118 fees receive the missing primary-source passes. Otherwise a comparison would create false equivalence between verified statutory numbers and unresolved categories.

Researcher self-check

Verified in this investigation: current federal TSR fee-timing rule; Regulation F validation framework; federal canceled-debt/insolvency tax framework; bankruptcy collateral/co-debtor distinctions; Maine licensing fees, consumer fee caps, collector limitation rule and major exemptions; Massachusetts creditor-collection rule and official six-year guidance; New Hampshire debt-adjuster application charges, key limitations, wage provision, homestead and small-claims ceiling; Rhode Island debt-management/settlement fee provisions, major execution exemptions, homestead and the cited interest rule; Vermont debt-adjuster definition/application cost and court judgment/small-claims guidance; New Jersey's current nonprofit-only debt-adjuster licensing position; New York's current three-year/no-revival consumer-credit rule and wage-execution formula plus the proposed—not enacted—status of identified licensing bills; and Pennsylvania's separate debt-management/debt-settlement licensing structure and §5525 four-year limitation framework. 4

Not verified and therefore not represented as established law: any universal settlement eligibility percentage or timeline; any universal credit-score drop or recovery period; creditor-specific settlement willingness; issuer-specific arbitration/release terms; general guarantor release; state-law tax exclusions; local licensing outside the verified state material; tribal or territorial applicability; current exemption figures whose statutes require indexing but for which the 2026 adjustment was not captured; and the particular state cells marked unresolved above.

Status checking performed: active New York bills were kept separate from current law; Vermont's October 6, 2026 promulgated rule was recognized as future-effective January 1, 2027 rather than applied to the October 22 baseline; agency-page update dates were not treated as statutory effective dates; and Maine's Revisor page extraction date was noted rather than silently equated to the access date. 39

Evidence handling limitations: official HTML statutes were preferred. PDFs that would have required visual inspection were not substantively relied upon where a screenshot was not obtained. Search snippets that merely revealed a source but not the operative text were treated as discovery-only. Where a very large official code page could not be opened successfully—most notably Pennsylvania Title 42 and portions of Connecticut/New Hampshire material—the report either used the narrower official extraction actually returned or marked the remaining proposition unresolved rather than reconstructing it from memory. 45

Overall D030 disposition: the assignment yields strong publishable modules for Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey market access, New York limitations/wage enforcement, and Pennsylvania licensing; it does not yet support a claim that every requested subtopic in every state has publication-grade primary verification. The matrix and coverage table identify exactly where a second primary-source pass is required, preserving those gaps instead of converting them into unsupported legal conclusions.