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

S_NJ PASS-02 — Current market-access / fee-authority authentication only

Baseline carried forward: October 22, 2026 Pacific. Actual access date for this pass: October 24, 2026 Pacific.

This pass does not rerun PASS-01. It addresses only: (1) authentication of current N.J.S.A. 17:16G-2 and 17:16G-6 plus any material 2026 enacted amendment affecting them; and (2) post-May 9, 2025 official status for Anchor Law Firm, PLLC v. State, A-0052-23.

A. Findings

1. Current N.J.S.A. 17:16G-2

I was not able to obtain a directly rendered official current section page for §17:16G-2 from the Legislature's current statute gateway. The official statutes root did render and identifies the compilation as “UPDATED THROUGH P.L.2026, c.50, and J.R.1”, but the direct Title 17 TOC route failed in the ordinary reader. New Jersey Legislature

The material authentication gap can nevertheless be substantially resolved through an official enactment/current-legislative-text chain, rather than through a secondary code publisher.

The Legislature's official 2026 bill A3489 says it is “Pre-filed for introduction in the 2026 session” and “Introduced Pending Technical Review by Legislative Counsel.” It then identifies §2 as “Section 2 of P.L.1979, c.16 (C.17:16G-2)” and displays the pre-amendment statutory text using New Jersey legislative amendment notation. The proposed new words “or a for-profit debt adjuster” are additions; the unchanged baseline is:

“No person other than a nonprofit social service agency [or], a nonprofit consumer credit counseling agency … shall act as a debt adjuster.”

It likewise displays the existing license requirement and existing subsection (c), “A licensee is authorized to offer credit counseling,” and expressly identifies the prior source as “P.L.1986, c.184, s.2.” New Jersey Legislature

The preceding Legislature's official second reprint of S1310 independently shows the same baseline and the same P.L.1986, c.184, s.2 source notation; the for-profit language is visibly proposed language rather than existing law. New Jersey Legislature

PASS-02 conclusion for §17:16G-2: the current statutory baseline authenticated by these official legislative materials remains the nonprofit-only framework reflected in PASS-01. No material 2026 enactment adding ordinary for-profit debt adjusters to §17:16G-2 was verified. [S_NJ-P2-C001–C003]

This is stronger than PASS-01's former “official current §2 retrieval held,” but it is important to preserve the provenance distinction: I authenticated the current wording through official legislative amendment texts plus the current statutes compilation/version, not through a directly readable current §17:16G-2 code page.

2. Current N.J.S.A. 17:16G-6

The same direct-current-section rendering problem remains for §17:16G-6, but the official legislative-text chain is especially clear.

S1310's official second reprint states:

• §6(a): a licensee may charge a fee covering the cost of debt adjustment and credit counseling.
• §6(b): the nonprofit debt-adjustment fee may not exceed 1% of gross monthly income and, statutorily, $15 in any one month, “except as may be otherwise provided by rule or regulation promulgated by the commissioner”; waiver is discretionary.
• §6(c): the Commissioner is authorized to establish the maximum fee for nonprofit credit counseling.
• The bill then proposes a new subsection (d) authorizing maximum fees for for-profit debt adjusters.
• It identifies the existing section's source as P.L.1986, c.184, s.4. New Jersey Legislature

The 2026 A3489 text again reproduces the same existing §6(b) and (c), proposes the same new for-profit subsection (d), and identifies P.L.1986, c.184, s.4 as the prior law. New Jersey Legislature

That resolves the specific PASS-01 authentication concern behind C021: the statutory $15 figure and express regulatory-override authority are authenticated in current official legislative materials. PASS-02 does not re-investigate the separate operative regulatory $25 figure; that remains carried from PASS-01's already-reviewed regulation/adoption chain rather than relabeled as new work.

PASS-02 conclusion for §17:16G-6: no enacted 2026 amendment changing the existing statutory fee clauses was verified. The proposed for-profit subsection remained proposal language in the official material reviewed. [S_NJ-P2-C004–C005]

3. What happened to the 2024–25 for-profit reform bill, and did it amend §§2 or 6 in 2026?

This part can now be separated into two questions.

Enactment effect: resolved

The official January 12, 2026 Legislative Digest shows S1310, second reprint, passing with a 68-1-0 vote. New Jersey Legislature

More importantly, the same official digest expressly lists S1310 under the heading “Bills Passed Both Houses/Sent To Governor.” New Jersey Legislature

The bill itself would have amended §§17:16G-2 and -6 to admit certain for-profit debt adjusters and create additional fee-setting authority. New Jersey Legislature+1

Yet the new 222nd Legislature's A3489, introduced for the 2026 session, again proposes those very changes as amendments to existing law and again identifies the existing §2 and §6 sources as P.L.1986, c.184, ss.2 and 4. New Jersey Legislature+1

Combined with the Legislature's current statutes compilation being updated through P.L.2026, c.50, this is strong official evidence that S1310 did not become an enactment amending §§17:16G-2 or -6. New Jersey Legislature

So the consequential legal question is resolved: there is no authenticated 2026 enacted amendment from S1310 creating an ordinary for-profit licensing pathway or altering §6's existing fee-authority clauses. [S_NJ-P2-C006]

Exact gubernatorial disposition label: still held

I did not obtain a readable official Governor or Legislature action-history page that affirmatively labels S1310 “Pocket Veto” or supplies its exact gubernatorial disposition date.

PASS-01's reproduced January 2026 release and third-party status sources are therefore not upgraded to primary authentication here. It is safe to say from primary evidence that:

1. S1310 passed both houses and went to the Governor on the legislative record; and
2. it did not become a current amendment to §§17:16G-2 or -6.

It is not safe from the newly read primary evidence to convert the exact disposition into “officially verified pocket veto on January 20, 2026.” That narrower action-history fact remains held. [S_NJ-P2-C007]

A3489 itself is expressly an introduced 222nd Legislature bill, not an enactment; its proposed for-profit changes therefore cannot be treated as current law. New Jersey Legislature

4. Anchor Law, A-0052-23 — official later docket/status after May 9, 2025

I did not rerun or reinterpret the 45-page appellate holding. The coordinator's supplied reading of pages 44–45 remains the PASS-01 foundation.

Fresh official NJ Courts material confirms that:

• The case remains indexed as A-0052-23, Anchor Law Firm, PLLC, et al. v. State of New Jersey, et al.
• The official case page identifies the Appellate Division case number and says it was argued April 7, 2025. New Jersey Courts
• NJ Courts' published-opinions index continues to identify it as a Published Appellate decision dated May 9, 2025. New Jersey Courts+1

I ran bounded searches of the official NJ Courts domain for the party name and A-number together with Supreme Court/certification concepts. They did not surface an official post-May 9, 2025 Supreme Court docket, certification grant/denial, stay, reversal, or later disposition.

That negative search result is not evidence that no petition was filed or that no later order exists. The appellate A-number cannot simply be assumed to be a Supreme Court docket number.

The direct official case page also returned 403 Forbidden when opened through the ordinary reader, even though NJ Courts' indexed public case record is visible. (Website Name Missing)

Accordingly:

PASS-02 cannot upgrade the May 9, 2025 Anchor holding to “final,” “unappealed,” “certification denied,” or “unreversed.” No official later order was found, but the official later-status question remains unresolved. [S_NJ-P2-C008–C009]

The materially useful next public source is an NJ Courts Supreme Court docket/order record keyed to the party names, once a Supreme Court docket identifier can be surfaced, followed by any certification/stay/disposition order attached to that record. Merely re-opening the Appellate opinion or its briefs would not resolve this gap.

B. PASS-02 source register

All sources below were accessed or attempted October 24, 2026 Pacific. Links are to the direct public destinations surfaced in this pass.

C. Material PASS-02 claim register

D. Earlier-claim patch map

E. PASS-02 scope coverage

F. Failed routes

G. Remaining dependencies

H. Researcher self-check

Freshly read in PASS-02: the Legislature's current statutes-root version statement; official 2026 A3489 text and status; official S1310 second-reprint text for §§2 and 6; the official January 12, 2026 Legislative Digest portions showing S1310's vote and “Passed Both Houses/Sent To Governor” status; official NJ Courts indexed A-0052-23 case and published-opinion records.

Not freshly treated as substantive evidence: the coordinator-supplied reading of the 45-page Anchor opinion; PASS-01's Chapter3:25 adoption chain; PASS-01 HUD/TSR work; PASS-01 fee examples; PASS-01 S029 reproduced release. Those remain prior evidence and were not relabeled as new visits.

Not obtained: a directly rendered official current §17:16G-2 or §17:16G-6 page; an official action-history record explicitly identifying S1310's exact gubernatorial veto disposition; or an official post-May9,2025 Supreme Court docket/order for Anchor.

No independent-review claim is made. No Chrome or Work access was requested, no other chat was created, and no local-save, full-state-completion, provider-authorization, A066-acceptance, or publication-readiness claim is made.

END S_NJ PASS-02.