Check a debt-help provider’s evidence

SettleADebt.com — S_KS, PASS-01

Kansas provider market access and consumer fees

Research and source-access date: October 24, 2026, Pacific time Mode: Regular Chat with public-web browsing. No Deep Research, Work, Chrome control, APIs, account changes, applications, purchases, contacts, private borrower data, website changes, publication, or other Chat creation. Component boundary: Provider classification, public market access, consumer fees, and fee timing. This is not the complete Kansas dossier and does not establish any named provider’s authorization.

Bottom-line determination

Kansas does not have a simple “debt settlement is prohibited” rule, nor does it have a generic debt-settlement license with a percentage-fee schedule. Instead, the Kansas Credit Services Organization Act, K.S.A. 50-1116 through 50-1135, functionally covers:

• Custodial debt-management plans that receive and distribute consumer funds.
• Services represented as improving credit records, histories, ratings, or scores.
• Negotiation or offers to negotiate the deferral or reduction of obligations arising from credit extended by others.

A covered provider dealing with a Kansas resident must obtain a Kansas credit services organization license from the State Bank Commissioner. The definition expressly includes nonprofit entities, and it is not limited to providers physically located in Kansas. A remote provider’s noncustodial settlement model can fall within the Act because custody is not required under the negotiation prong. Kansas Legislature+3

The current Kansas fee statute authorizes a narrow set of fee categories: a one-time consultation fee up to $75; a monthly fee equal to the lesser of $40 total or $5 per creditor listed in the agreement; certain reasonable counseling or educational fees; creditor-paid compensation not passed to the consumer; a limited insufficient-payment fee; and a limited optional electronic-payment charge. It does not state a percentage-of-enrolled-debt, percentage-of-savings, per-settlement, or success-fee category. Consequently, a conventional debt-settlement fee such as 20%–30% of enrolled debt has no verified Kansas authorization merely because the provider obtains a CSO license. Kansas Legislature

There are two consequential unresolved structural issues:

1. The mandatory agreement provisions are written around payments made to the licensee for disbursement to creditors. Kansas case law nevertheless applies the Act’s definition to a noncustodial negotiation program in which the consumer paid creditors directly. The precise compliant contract architecture for a modern noncustodial settlement provider remains unresolved. Kansas Legislature+2
2. The separate criminal debt-adjusting statute still exempts a person “registered” under the CSO Act, even though the civil Act was changed from registration to licensing in 2017. The license program plainly continues and is designed in part for custodial DMPs, but the stale criminal wording should not be silently rewritten. Kansas Legislature+1

A. Substantive answers

1. Classification of debt adjustment, settlement, DMP, credit counseling, and related conduct

1.1 The controlling test is functional, not the provider’s label

A “credit services organization” is a person that engages in, or holds itself out as willing to engage in, debt-management services for compensation, gain, or the expectation of compensation or gain. “Debt management service” then has three separate operative branches:

K.S.A. 50-1117 does not distinguish “principal reduction” from interest-rate concessions, fee waivers, maturity extensions, payment deferrals, or other reductions in the consumer’s obligation. Negotiating any covered reduction or deferral can satisfy the third branch. Likewise, the provider cannot avoid coverage by calling the service “financial wellness,” “legal enrollment,” “resolution,” “restructuring,” or “credit advocacy” if the actual conduct falls within a statutory branch. Kansas Legislature+1

1.2 Custodial DMP and noncustodial settlement are distinct but both can be covered

A provider that receives money and distributes it to creditors is directly within K.S.A. 50-1117(d)(1). It also becomes subject to Kansas trust-account, deposit, disbursement, error-correction, and cancellation-refund rules. Kansas Legislature

A provider that never takes custody can still be covered under K.S.A. 50-1117(d)(3) because that branch turns on negotiating—or offering to negotiate—a deferral or reduction, not receiving funds. In Nazar v. Allied Consumer Services, the consumer accumulated settlement money separately and was to pay creditors directly, yet the bankruptcy court treated the negotiation business as covered by the KCSOA. The case used the former “registration” version of the statute and proceeded on an uncontested/default record, so it is persuasive evidence of functional coverage rather than a controlling modern licensing decision. District of Kansas Bankruptcy Court+1

Result: A provider cannot rely on a “we never touch the consumer’s money” theory to avoid Kansas CSO coverage.

1.3 Credit counseling boundary

Kansas expressly includes services that improve or offer to improve a consumer’s credit record, history, rating, or score. A credit-counseling program that also negotiates concessions or receives funds is independently covered under the other branches. Kansas Legislature

The statute also permits a licensee to charge a reasonable fee for enumerated counseling and education services. That fee provision does not necessarily transform every stand-alone budgeting or financial-literacy service into a CSO; classification still begins with the definition in K.S.A. 50-1117. The unresolved boundary is a provider that offers only neutral education or budgeting, neither holds consumer funds nor communicates with creditors, and makes no credit-improvement representation. No current Kansas administrative interpretation resolving that exact boundary was located in the official materials reviewed.

1.4 Consumer, business-purpose debt, and entity debt

“Consumer” means an individual who is a Kansas resident. Therefore:

• A corporation, LLC, partnership, or other non-individual obligor is not a “consumer” under this Act’s definition.
• The definition does not contain a personal, family, or household-purpose limitation.
• An individual sole proprietor or other individual Kansas resident with business-purpose obligations may therefore be textually covered, particularly if the service negotiates credit extended to that individual. No Kansas appellate decision or current agency interpretation resolving the business-purpose edge case was located, so that conclusion is held at medium confidence rather than treated as final. Kansas Legislature

This state-law boundary differs from CROA’s “consumer credit transaction” definition and from the federal TSR debt-relief definition. Those federal instruments should not be imported into the Kansas definition.

1.5 Resident and remote-provider nexus

Kansas requires licensing when a person engages in—or holds itself out as willing to engage in—CSO business with a Kansas resident. It does not require the provider to maintain a Kansas office. Kansas-directed internet and electronic advertisements must carry the licensed name and license number. These provisions create a direct textual basis for applying the Act to remote providers soliciting or serving Kansas residents. Kansas Legislature+1

Claims: C001–C007.

2. Prohibited, licensed, authorized, and exempt models

2.1 Model-access matrix

2.2 Licensing authority and conditions

The issuing regulator is the Kansas State Bank Commissioner, through the Consumer and Mortgage Lending Division of the Office of the State Bank Commissioner.

A covered person must obtain a nontransferable, nonassignable CSO license before engaging in or holding itself out as willing to conduct covered business with a Kansas resident. Approval depends on a complete application, payment of the application charge, and the Commissioner’s fitness determination concerning financial responsibility, character, qualifications, competence, honesty, fairness, and compliance with applicable state and federal law. Licenses expire April 30 annually; renewal is due at least 30 days before expiration. Kansas Legislature+1

The current rule text states:

• Initial application governmental charge: $400.
• Renewal governmental charge: $150.

Those are provider-to-government charges, not consumer fees. The regulation still uses the former terminology “registration” and “registrant,” but the current statute uses “license” and “licensee.” Kansas Bank Commissioner

A $25,000 surety bond is statutorily required. The statute authorizes a regulatory increase up to $1 million, but no additional current CSO bond-scale regulation was located in Article 25 during this pass. Full bond-form, claim, and solvency analysis remains later-pass work. Kansas Bank Commissioner

2.3 Attorney and law-firm exemption

K.S.A. 50-1116(b) exempts:

1. An individual licensed to practice law in Kansas,
2. When acting within the course and scope of that individual’s law practice, and
3. That individual’s law firm.

The Kansas Supreme Court held in Hays v. Ruther that the qualifying attorney’s law firm shares the exemption. The court did not hold that every entity calling itself a law firm—or every debt-resolution company with an attorney relationship—is exempt. It expressly left factual application to the lower court. Kansas Legislature+1

The 2025 federal bankruptcy decision in Williamson v. Hailstone Legal Group reinforces that distinction procedurally. At the motion-to-dismiss stage, the court rejected the proposition that all law firms are automatically exempt. It treated the exemption as dependent on a Kansas-licensed attorney actually acting within the course and scope of that attorney’s practice, with firm coverage following only after that condition is met. The decision is a trial-level pleading decision, not a final merits determination. District of Kansas Bankruptcy Court

2.4 Nonprofit and institutional status

Kansas expressly includes nonprofit entities within “person.” Therefore, nonprofit incorporation, tax-exempt status, or affiliation with a counseling network is not a stand-alone KCSOA exemption. Kansas Legislature

Article 11 contains no express blanket exception for banks, credit unions, insurers, payment processors, affiliates, or other institutional categories comparable to CROA’s federal exclusions. That does not prove those entities have no other exemption or preemption argument; it means none was established from the controlling Kansas CSO Act in this component.

2.5 Original creditor and self-creditor conduct

The negotiation prong applies to obligations arising from credit “extended by others,” making a creditor’s negotiation of its own receivable textually different from third-party settlement. Separately, K.S.A. 50-1121(g) prohibits a person subject to the Act from receiving compensation for debt-management services when that person has otherwise acted as a creditor for the consumer. Kansas thus does not supply a general “self-creditor CSO fee” pathway. Kansas Legislature+1

2.6 Separate criminal debt-adjusting provision

K.S.A. 21-6502 defines debt adjusting as knowingly making contracts under which a debtor periodically pays money to the adjuster, which distributes it among specified creditors for consideration. Debt adjusting is a class B nonperson misdemeanor. The section excludes activity incidental to lawful law practice and activity by a person “registered” under the Kansas CSO Act. Kansas Legislature

The civil CSO Act changed from registration to licensing in 2017; §21-6502 retains the old word. This pass found no published Kansas opinion, attorney-general opinion, or current agency interpretation reconciling the mismatch. The existence of the active CSO license program and the civil Act’s detailed custodial duties strongly indicates an intended authorized pathway, but the criminal text cannot be rewritten as a matter of research.

Claims: C008–C018.

3. Current consumer fees and historical reconciliation

3.1 Verified current Kansas fee schedule

The current operative text is K.S.A. 50-1126. Kansas Legislature

3.2 Timing within the state fee statute

Except for the separately authorized counseling and education category in K.S.A. 50-1126(b)(5), a licensee may not impose a fee or receive consumer funds or payments on the consumer’s behalf until after the provider and consumer have executed a debt-management services agreement.

That means even the “consultation fee” is not textually exempted from the executed-agreement prerequisite. The counseling/education category is the one express exception. Kansas Legislature

The Kansas statute does not impose a successful-settlement or creditor-payment performance trigger for the $75 consultation fee or monthly maintenance fee. That does not eliminate a separately applicable federal TSR trigger.

3.3 No verified percentage or success-fee pathway

K.S.A. 50-1126 begins with a closed-form rule: fees and payments may be received only as allowed by the section or by a Commissioner rule. The operative statute and the only current CSO regulation located do not establish a percentage-of-debt, percentage-of-savings, per-settlement, or success-fee category. The administrative regulation addresses only the provider’s application and renewal charges. Kansas Legislature+1

Accordingly:

• A provider cannot treat the federal TSR’s proportional-allocation language as permission to charge a fee Kansas has not authorized.
• Calling a percentage charge a “legal fee,” “resolution fee,” “program fee,” “performance fee,” or “maintenance fee” does not change the statutory category.
• A license alone is not affirmative permission to use an unlisted consumer fee.

The allegations in Williamson included a debt-resolution arrangement and a claimed 27% fee, and the KCSOA counts survived dismissal. The court did not enter a final merits holding that every 27% fee violates Kansas law, but the decision is consistent with treating license and fee compliance as live, separate requirements. District of Kansas Bankruptcy Court+1

3.4 Counseling and educational fee branch

K.S.A. 50-1126(b)(5) permits a “reasonable” fee for:

• Reverse-mortgage counseling.
• Bankruptcy counseling.
• Student-loan counseling.
• Other counseling authorized by the Commissioner.
• An educational program.
• Materials and supplies.

No current numeric ceiling, percentage formula, CPI adjustment, or official fee table for this branch was located. Therefore, an exact “reasonable fee” amount is held.

Where the consumer enters a debt-management services agreement, the provider may not add a separate charge for the required financial analysis or initial budget, debt-management counseling, the required consumer-education program, or rescission. Nor may the provider condition entry into the agreement on purchasing fee-based counseling, education, materials, or supplies. Kansas Legislature

3.5 Unauthorized-fee consequence

Unless the unauthorized charge resulted from an accidental and bona fide error:

• The debt-management services agreement becomes void.
• The provider must return the unauthorized fee, charge, fund, or payment.

This is not merely a damages cap; it is an express contract-and-return consequence. Kansas Legislature

3.6 Historical amounts and effective change

Kansas’s original 2004 enactment set:

• Consultation fee: $50.
• Aggregate monthly maintenance ceiling: $20.
• Per-listed-creditor component: $5.

The 2017 legislation raised the consultation ceiling to $75 and the aggregate monthly ceiling to $40 while leaving the $5-per-listed-creditor figure unchanged. The 2017 changes became effective July 1, 2017. Kansas Legislature+5

No CPI formula, periodic indexing language, or later official adjustment notice was found in:

• The current K.S.A. 50-1126 text.
• The current official CSO regulation article.
• The current OSBC CSO law-book compilation.
• The current OSBC guidance and administrative-interpretation compilations reviewed.

Older tables showing $50 and $20 are therefore historical, not current. No independent CPI calculation was performed or needed because the statute states fixed current amounts.

Claims: C019–C031.

4. When fees may be imposed or received

4.1 Kansas state timing

Kansas state timing is category-specific:

K.S.A. 50-1126 does not say that signing the agreement makes every listed fee lawful. The fee must also fit an authorized category and satisfy its conditions. Kansas Legislature

4.2 Federal TSR timing is an independent layer

When the Telemarketing Sales Rule applies to the provider, channel, and service, 16 C.F.R. §310.4(a)(5) prohibits requesting or receiving any debt-relief fee until:

1. At least one debt has been renegotiated, settled, reduced, or otherwise altered under a valid settlement agreement, debt-management plan, or comparable agreement; and
2. The customer has made at least one payment under that creditor or collector agreement.

Where debts are altered individually, the fee must then be allocated either:

• In the same proportion that the settled debt’s enrolled balance bears to the total enrolled balance; or
• As the same savings percentage across debts.

The federal rule’s allocation method controls how an otherwise lawful fee may be earned under the TSR. It does not create a Kansas percentage-fee category. eCFR

The TSR defines debt relief by reference to represented changes to the terms of unsecured debt. Its applicability still depends on the Rule’s telemarketing coverage and exemptions; it is not a universal federal law governing every service delivered through every channel. Ordinary inbound or direct-mail exemptions are curtailed for debt-relief services, but a full federal-channel analysis remains provider- and campaign-specific. eCFR+1

Practical intersection: A Kansas-permitted $75 consultation fee or monthly fee may still be federally premature if it is consideration for a TSR-covered debt-relief service and the federal performance trigger has not occurred. The state’s post-signing permission is not federal advance-fee permission.

4.3 Dedicated accounts

The TSR permits requiring money to be placed into a dedicated account only if its specified conditions are satisfied, including insured-institution and consumer-control requirements. That dedicated-account provision is not a safe harbor for an otherwise unauthorized Kansas provider fee. eCFR

Kansas separately requires custodial creditor funds to be deposited into the licensee’s statutory trust account within four calendar days. Funds must ordinarily be disbursed within 20 calendar days or before a delay would cause the consumer a charge or penalty, whichever is earlier. Kansas Legislature

4.4 Conditional CROA and TSR credit-repair overlap

Where actual representations give the service the express or implied purpose of improving a consumer’s credit record, history, or rating, CROA may apply. CROA bars charging or receiving consideration for a promised service before that service is fully performed. CROA has its own exclusions, including qualifying 501(c)(3) organizations, an original creditor restructuring its own debt, and depository institutions and credit unions. Those federal exclusions do not automatically become Kansas CSO exemptions. U.S. Code+1

For telemarketed credit-repair representations, 16 C.F.R. §310.4(a)(2) has a separate fee trigger involving expiration of the represented performance period and a qualifying consumer report issued more than six months after the represented result. That is distinct from the debt-relief trigger in §310.4(a)(5). eCFR

Claims: C019, C032–C036.

5. Regulator, application route, and public license verification

5.1 Regulator and authorization route

The Kansas Office of the State Bank Commissioner identifies a Credit Services Organization License for credit-counseling and debt-management companies and directs applications and renewals through the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System and Registry. The agency page repeats the functional statutory definition. Kansas Bank Commissioner

The current public route is:

• OSBC applications and forms page: https://osbckansas.gov/consumer-mortgage-lending/applications-forms/
• NMLS Resource Center/checklist compiler: https://mortgage.nationwidelicensingsystem.org/knowledge/Products/nmls/stateresourcecenter/SitePages/Checklist-Compiler.aspx
• NMLS Consumer Access: https://www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org/
• OSBC license lookup landing page: https://online.osbckansas.gov/Lookup/LicenseLookup.aspx

OSBC’s lookup page directs users to NMLS Consumer Access for nonbank financial companies, and its help page explains searching by full NMLS ID, state license number, company name, city, state, or ZIP and filtering by regulator. OSBC Kansas+1

5.2 Current-procedure limitation

The OSBC application page accessed October 24, 2026 still displayed the 2025 annual report and renewal cycle due April 1, 2026. That cycle is past. The page remains competent evidence that the CSO license exists and uses NMLS, but it is not sufficient evidence of the complete 2027 renewal checklist or all current state-specific application uploads. Kansas Bank Commissioner

The exact current Kansas CSO checklist was not successfully extracted from the NMLS checklist compiler. Therefore, this pass does not claim a complete launch-ready filing package.

5.3 Named-provider status

No company name or NMLS number was supplied for a provider-status check, and no named provider was searched. Therefore:

• No named company is characterized as licensed, pending, inactive, exempt, or unauthorized.
• A marketing statement that a provider “serves Kansas” would not establish authorization.
• A current active license must be verified in NMLS Consumer Access under the relevant legal name and NMLS/state-license identifiers.

No application was filed, no regulator was contacted, and no account was created.

Claims: C037–C040.

6. Bounded fee and boundary examples

The full examples appear in Section D1. The principal conclusions are:

• Three listed creditors produce a $15 monthly state ceiling, not $40.
• Eight or more listed creditors reach the $40 monthly ceiling.
• Debt size, settlement amount, and savings do not change the Kansas monthly formula.
• A 25% debt or savings calculation can be arithmetically correct while lacking a Kansas fee category.
• Cancellation creates no rescission fee and requires return of custodial trust funds within 10 calendar days, but does not expressly refund all previously authorized fees solely because of cancellation.
• Prior fees and current-debt calculations must use the same listed-creditor method and the same agreement facts; no method-switching is assumed.

Claims: C020–C035.

7. Component coverage and future investigations

The complete component coverage and gap table appears in Section D2. The major matters expressly left open include:

• Full agreement-form and amendment architecture.
• Complete custodial funds, trust, bond, annual-report, audit, and examination requirements.
• Full civil, criminal, administrative, and private remedies.
• Collection-agency overlap.
• Litigation, limitations, and choice-of-law.
• Secured debt, mortgages, student loans, taxes, medical debt, and other sector rules.
• Local and tribal law.
• Affiliate, creditor, law-firm, and institutional structures.
• Full case-law and enforcement-order review.
• Actual named-provider license verification.
• Any A066 or state-level acceptance decision.

No state or A066 acceptance is supplied by implication.

B. Source table

Kansas statutes, regulations, and agency materials

Cases and federal common-context authorities

C. Claim table

D. Worked examples and scope coverage

D1. Worked fee and boundary examples

All examples assume a nonexempt Kansas licensee and a Kansas-resident individual. They calculate Kansas state ceilings only unless federal timing is expressly added. They do not assume that signing an agreement overrides the TSR, CROA, an exemption failure, or the unresolved noncustodial agreement issue.

Example 1 — Three-creditor plan

Inputs

• Listed creditors: 3
• Consultation fee charged once: $75
• Monthly operator: lesser of $40 or $5 per listed creditor

Calculation

• Per-creditor component: 3 × $5 = $15 per month
• Monthly ceiling: min($40, $15) = $15
• First month, assuming both otherwise chargeable: $75 + $15 = $90
• Later full month: $15

Result

• State-only maximum in first month: $90
• State-only maximum in each later full month: $15

Units and rounding: Whole dollars; no rounding required.

Legal conditions

• Agreement already executed.
• All three creditors are listed in the agreement.
• No separate fee is charged for required budget analysis, DMP counseling, education, or rescission.
• If the TSR applies, the federal performance trigger may prevent collection even though Kansas’s post-agreement condition is satisfied.

Claims C019–C021, C028, C033.

Example 2 — Twelve creditors over twelve months

Inputs

• Listed creditors: 12
• Program months: 12
• One-time consultation fee: $75

Calculation

• Per-creditor monthly component: 12 × $5 = $60
• Monthly ceiling: min($40, $60) = $40
• Twelve-month maintenance total: 12 × $40 = $480
• State fee total: $480 + $75 = $555

Result: $555 over twelve full months, excluding permitted event charges, creditor-paid compensation, or a separately lawful counseling fee.

Consistency: The same listed-creditor formula is used in every month. No percentage or settlement method is substituted.

Claims C020–C021, C030.

Example 3 — Lower-debt consumer and percentage-fee boundary

Inputs

• One listed debt: $2,000
• Hypothetical settlement: $1,000
• Hypothetical provider percentage: 25%

Kansas monthly calculation

• 1 creditor × $5 = $5
• min($40, $5) = $5 per month

Separate arithmetic only

• 25% of enrolled debt: 0.25 × $2,000 = $500
• Savings: $2,000 − $1,000 = $1,000
• 25% of savings: 0.25 × $1,000 = $250

Result

• Verified Kansas monthly ceiling: $5 per month.
• $500 enrolled-balance fee: not a verified Kansas fee category.
• $250 savings fee: not a verified Kansas fee category.

The scalar arithmetic is correct, but neither percentage result is transformed into a lawful Kansas fee by arithmetic or by the TSR’s allocation formulas.

Claims C021, C030, C034.

Example 4 — Partial settlement and creditor-count change

Inputs at enrollment

• Debt A: $4,000
• Debt B: $3,000
• Debt C: $2,000
• Debt D: $1,000
• Total enrolled balance: $10,000
• Four creditors listed

Initial state monthly fee

• 4 × $5 = $20
• min($40, $20) = $20

Assume Debt C is later settled. Two outcomes must be separated:

Outcome 1 — Debt C remains listed in the operative agreement

• Listed creditors remain 4.
• Monthly formula remains 4 × $5 = $20.

Outcome 2 — A valid amendment removes Debt C before the next billing month

• Listed creditors become 3.
• Future monthly formula becomes 3 × $5 = $15.

Held issue

K.S.A. 50-1126 keys the formula to creditors “listed” in the agreement, but this pass did not locate a rule specifying mandatory amendment timing, proration within a month, or when a settled creditor ceases to be listed. Therefore, Outcome 2 depends on an assumed valid amendment and billing cutoff.

Federal allocation illustration, not Kansas authorization

If an otherwise lawful total contracted fee were F, Debt C represents 2,000 / 10,000 = 20% of enrolled balances. Under the TSR’s proportional method, the federal allocation would be 0.20 × F after the federal trigger. Kansas has not supplied the required lawful percentage-fee total F, so this formula does not establish a collectible Kansas success fee.

Claims C021, C030, C033–C034.

Example 5 — Prior fees followed by cancellation

Inputs

• Four creditors listed for three full months.
• Consultation fee: $75.
• Monthly fee: 4 × $5 = $20.
• Consumer cancels in writing after month three.
• Provider holds $1,200 of consumer principal in the statutory trust account.

Fee calculation

• Consultation: $75
• Months 1–3: 3 × $20 = $60
• Previously charged state fee total: $75 + $60 = $135

Cancellation consequences

• Rescission fee: $0
• Trust principal to return: $1,200
• Kansas deadline for trust return: within 10 calendar days after the provider receives rescission.

Prior-fee treatment

Kansas does not expressly say that the $135 must be refunded merely because the consumer canceled. It does expressly require return of unauthorized fees and makes the agreement void where an unauthorized charge occurred, absent accidental bona fide error.

Consistency: Every prior maintenance charge was calculated against the same four listed creditors. No settlement-success method is introduced.

Claims C021, C029, C032.

Example 6 — Voluntary contribution ceiling

Inputs

• Three creditors.
• Consultation fee received: $75.
• Monthly maintenance received: $15.
• Proposed “voluntary contribution”: $25.

Authorized statutory amounts at the stated point

• Consultation plus monthly: $75 + $15 = $90
• Fees already received: $90
• Remaining headroom under the assumed same-period aggregation: $90 − $90 = $0

Result under that bounded assumption: Permissible additional contribution is $0.

Important hold: The statute uses an aggregate-fee limitation but does not separately define its temporal horizon. The general operator is:

Maximum contribution = max(0, amount authorized under §50-1126(b)(1)–(2) − other consumer fees already received within the legally relevant aggregation period)

The proposed $25 cannot simply be treated as extra revenue, and it cannot be required.

Claim C023.

Example 7 — Counseling fee with no numeric ceiling

Inputs

• Provider offers one bankruptcy-counseling session.
• Proposed fee: R.

Operator

• Kansas requires R to be reasonable.
• No verified statute, rule, or current official table supplies a numeric ceiling.

Result: Exact maximum held; no dollar amount invented.

If the consumer then enters a debt-management services agreement, the provider may not separately charge for the agreement’s required financial analysis, initial budget, debt-management counseling, required consumer education, or rescission. The provider also may not condition the agreement on buying fee-based counseling or materials.

Claim C024, C028.

Example 8 — Insufficient payment and electronic processing

Inputs

• One consumer payment is insufficient.
• Provider proposes a $40 returned-payment fee.
• A later electronic payment is processed.
• Consumer has authorized electronic processing.
• Not all scheduled payments are electronic.

Calculation

• Insufficient-payment ceiling: min($40, $30) = $30
• Electronic-processing ceiling: min(proposed fee, $5)

If the proposed electronic charge is $7:

• min($7, $5) = $5

Result

• Maximum NSF charge for that insufficient payment: $30 once.
• Maximum authorized electronic processing charge for the later payment: $5.

If all scheduled payments are electronic, the electronic charge becomes $0.

Held issue: No official interpretation was located on stacking an NSF charge and electronic-processing fee for the same failed transaction. This example keeps the events separate.

Claim C026.

Example 9 — Unauthorized 25% enrollment fee

Inputs

• Enrolled balance: $20,000
• Provider fee: 25% of enrolled balance

Calculation

• 0.25 × $20,000 = $5,000

Classification

• Arithmetic result: $5,000.
• Verified Kansas fee category: none.
• Provider is assumed nonexempt and no Commissioner rule or order authorizing the fee is established.

Statutory consequence, absent accidental bona fide error

• Agreement becomes void.
• Unauthorized $5,000 must be returned.

This is not a finding concerning a particular contract or provider; it illustrates the statutory consequence when a charge is in fact unauthorized.

Claims C029–C030.

Example 10 — Creditor-paid compensation

Inputs

• Creditor pays provider $100 for debt-management work.
• Consumer is charged $0 for that creditor payment.

Result

• The $100 is within the creditor-paid category because it is not assessed to the consumer.
• K.S.A. 50-1126(b)(6) supplies no numeric ceiling in this section.

If the creditor passes the $100 through to the consumer, the statutory condition fails.

Claim C025.

D2. Scope coverage and gap table

E. Researcher self-check

Actually read or inspected

• Current 2026 Kansas Revisor text for the operative definitions, licensing requirement, attorney exemption, licensee duties, prohibited acts, trust obligations, fee provision, and criminal debt-adjusting provision.
• The complete official 2026 OSBC CSO law-book PDF, including the statute outline and K.A.R. 17-25-1.
• The 2004 and 2017 session-law fee passages needed to distinguish historical and current dollar amounts.
• The OSBC applications/forms, license lookup, online help, and laws/guidance pages.
• The current compiled OSBC administrative-interpretation and guidance materials sufficiently to conduct the bounded CSO/fee search described above.
• Full or relevant opinion passages in Hays, Williamson, and Nazar.
• Current eCFR text for 16 C.F.R. §§310.2, 310.4, and 310.6.
• Federal CROA definition, exclusions, and advance-payment provision.

Not read, not obtained, or not established

• A current complete Kansas-specific NMLS CSO application checklist.
• Any confidential application, examination, agreement, trust-account, or license file.
• Any named provider’s live NMLS record.
• Any unpublished OSBC interpretation.
• A published interpretation reconciling K.S.A. 21-6502’s “registered” wording with the current license statute.
• A current agency interpretation defining the aggregation period for voluntary contributions.
• A current agency interpretation supplying a dollar amount for a “reasonable” counseling fee.
• A current agency interpretation resolving how the mandatory disbursement-agreement provisions apply to a purely noncustodial settlement model.
• Comprehensive Kansas case-law, enforcement-order, remedies, limitations, secured-debt, sector, collection, local, tribal, contract, or preemption analysis.

Source-access qualifications

• The current Kansas statutes were readable through official state pages and cross-checked against the official OSBC compilation.
• The Kansas Secretary of State direct rule URLs were discovered but returned HTTP 405; the exact rule text was read from the official OSBC 2026 compilation.
• The official Kansas Courts landing page and inferred official opinion PDF for Hays returned HTTP 403; the published opinion text was read from a public mirror, with the official case listing used for identity and release information.
• The OSBC application page was current as a webpage but displayed a past renewal cycle; it was not mischaracterized as a complete current-cycle checklist.
• Search results, snippets, company statements, and industry charts were not used as operative legal authority.
• No unavailable amount was reconstructed through CPI or assumed adjustment.
• No marketing claim was treated as proof of provider authorization.
• This is a researcher’s source-and-claim self-check, not an independent review, legal opinion, launch authorization, local-file write, or publication-readiness determination.

Overall PASS-01 conclusion: Kansas has a real CSO licensing route and does not categorically prohibit every covered provider model. But Kansas’s consumer-fee statute is materially narrower than the conventional for-profit debt-settlement model: it verifies fixed consultation and monthly maintenance fees and several limited event or counseling categories, while providing no verified percentage-of-debt, percentage-of-savings, or settlement-success fee. A noncustodial negotiation provider remains covered, but the combination of fee constraints, custodial-style agreement language, the federal timing overlay, and the unresolved criminal “registered” wording prevents this pass from treating a standard percentage-fee settlement program as publicly cleared for Kansas.

END S_KS PASS-01.