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

S_UT — Utah provider market access and consumer fees

PASS-01 · SettleADebt.com · Research access: October 24, 2026 · Baseline: October 22, 2026

Research status: Partially substantiated; not approved for operational reliance.

Utah has an identifiable statutory framework for consumer debt-management and debt-settlement providers: the Uniform Debt-Management Services Act, Utah Code Title 13, Chapter 42. The Utah Division of Consumer Protection operates a registration program for covered providers.

A particularly important finding is that Utah's legislation changed effective May 6, 2026. Earlier versions of the statute cannot safely be used as current authority. The Division has published a notice identifying SB 38 and its changes. Apply for Registration - commerce.utah.gov+1

A. Substantive findings

1. Classification of covered services

Utah's statutory framework addresses intermediaries acting between individuals and creditors to obtain concessions. The Division describes covered activity as including negotiations for reduced interest, forgiveness of late fees, and reduction of principal. Frequently Asked Questions - commerce.utah.gov+1

This creates two important operational distinctions:

• Debt-management plans: Negotiating reductions in finance charges, default charges, or late fees, often involving scheduled payments.
• Debt settlement: Negotiating changes to debts, particularly satisfaction for less than the principal owed.

The classification must follow the actual service and intermediary relationship, not the provider's advertising terminology.

The available statutory text also establishes that qualifying attorney-client legal services and accountant-client accounting services may fall outside the definition, but only when their specific statutory conditions are met. Merely associating a commercial settlement business with an attorney is not sufficient evidence of exclusion. Utah Legislature

Unresolved: The full current May 2026 text of §13-42-102, including all definitional exclusions and the precise consumer/business-purpose boundary, has not yet been verified from an opened current official document. These boundaries remain held.

2. Market access and registration

The pre-May 2026 text of §13-42-104 expressly applied to a provider serving an individual whom it reasonably should know resides in Utah when the provider agrees to provide services. It required registration unless an exception applied. Utah Legislature

The Division's current operational materials provide a registration process, application portal, documentation requirements and renewal information. Apply for Registration - commerce.utah.gov+1

Verified agency application charges

These are provider-to-government charges, not consumer debt-settlement fees. Utah Department of Commerce

The agency also identifies audited financial statements, accreditation, a proposed consumer fee schedule, client agreement materials, and $100,000 surety or letter-of-credit documentation among registration requirements. This confirms that registration involves substantive prerequisites, not simply payment of an application charge. Utah Department of Commerce+1

The May 2026 amendment notice confirms changes to registration provisions and exemptions. Therefore, the precise current exemption and registration rules require verification against the enacted version rather than assuming the historical wording is unchanged. Utah Department of Commerce

Market-access determination: Utah offers a registration pathway for covered debt-management businesses. No specific provider's registration status, and no particular SettleADebt.com operating model's eligibility, has been established by this research.

3. Consumer fee ceilings — current official statute verified

The official May 6, 2026 version of Utah Code §13-42-123, two pages, was successfully opened and read. It establishes the following statutory amounts and conditions. Utah Legislature

Critical qualification: Section 13-42-123(4)(a) makes certain dollar amounts subject to adjustment under §13-42-132(6). The amounts above are verified statutory text, not independently verified currently adjusted ceilings. No additional adjusted dollar figure is asserted here.

The current statute does not supply a single universal 15%, 20%, or 25% debt-settlement cap. Nor does the statutory text alone establish that a particular percentage is reasonable.

4. Fee timing and federal separation

For principal-reduction settlement, current Utah §13-42-123(4)(c) requires, before a provider requests or receives compensation, both a qualifying change to at least one debt under an agreement executed by the individual and at least one payment by the individual under the agreement with the creditor or debt collector.

Section 13-42-123(4)(c)(iii) additionally requires a permitted fee-allocation method: proportionate to the enrolled balance of the affected debt, or a percentage of savings that does not vary between debts. Section 13-42-123(6) separately addresses reasonable disclosure and collection as debts settle. Utah Legislature

These provisions do not mean a provider may collect fees before independently applicable federal requirements are satisfied. Federal Telemarketing Sales Rule coverage, including the debt-relief advance-fee restriction, must be analyzed separately.

The federal text and its precise exceptions have not yet been read in this pass. Therefore, no combined state/federal fee-collection approval is given.

5. Refund and counseling branch

The current official statute expressly preserves a no-agreement counseling pathway in §13-42-123(4)(d), subject to the statutory exceptions and approval conditions.

Under §13-42-123(5), when an individual subsequently assents to an agreement before 90 days have expired following completion or termination of the educational/counseling services, the provider must refund a fee paid under subsection (4)(d). Utah Legislature

This is a specific refund obligation. It should not be generalized into a universal refund rule for every type of debt-management charge.

B. Source register

Each source ID represents one document or page. Multiple sections of the same document reuse that ID. Access means public web retrieval on October 24, 2026, not legal certification.

For S001, the current official text is directly readable. Utah Legislature For S002–S005, the opened agency materials establish the procedural findings and the rule-access limitation. Apply for Registration - commerce.utah.gov+3

C. Claim register

Confidence refers to the stated claim within the cited evidence, not overall legal clearance.

Claim IDs C001–C023 all carry the prefix S_UT-P1-.

D. Worked fee examples

These are bounded arithmetic illustrations, not statements that the displayed charges are presently lawful. In particular, adjusted dollar ceilings, contract compliance, provider registration and federal applicability remain unresolved.

Example 1 — DMP monthly fee

Inputs: four remaining accounts, $10 statutory per-account amount, $50 statutory monthly maximum.

• Account calculation: 4 × $10 = $40.
• Monthly calculation: min($40, $50) = $40.

With six remaining accounts, min($60, $50) = $50.

Both results use the unadjusted statutory amounts. No fee is earned solely because an account was enrolled; all applicable agreement and timing conditions remain relevant.

Example 2 — Settlement fee, enrolled-balance method

Assume three enrolled debts:

Assume a clearly disclosed total contracted fee of $3,000, solely as an illustrative amount.

For Debt A, proportional allocation gives:

$3,000×$4,000$20,000=$600$3,000\times\frac{$4,000}{$20,000}=$600$3,000×$20,000$4,000​=$600If Debt A is settled for $2,000, the numerical allocation remains $600 under this method. Its $2,000 savings do not become the fee base.

Assume no earlier fees were earned. The maximum allocated fee for Debt A under the stated contract calculation is $600, but collection remains conditional on the statutory performance/payment triggers, reasonableness, registration, agreement compliance and federal rules.

Example 3 — Savings method, partial settlement

Assume the contract consistently charges 20% of realized savings on every debt, purely for illustration.

Debt A enrolled balance: $4,000. Amount actually paid to satisfy it: $2,600.

• Savings: $4,000 − $2,600 = $1,400.
• Illustrative fee: 20% × $1,400 = $280.

If only $1,000 has been paid toward a debt that has not yet been satisfied, this example does not treat the difference between $4,000 and $1,000 as realized savings. Fee calculation and collection are held pending actual settlement performance.

Example 4 — Prior fees and allocation consistency

Reuse Example 2's exact three-debt portfolio and $3,000 total contracted fee. Suppose Debt A was previously completed, all required triggers occurred, and $600 was lawfully earned.

If Debt B subsequently satisfies the required conditions:

$3,000×$6,000$20,000=$900$3,000\times\frac{$6,000}{$20,000}=$900$3,000×$20,000$6,000​=$900Cumulative fees allocated to A and B: $600 + $900 = $1,500.

Remaining allocation for Debt C: $3,000 − $1,500 = $1,500.

The method remains proportional to original enrolled balances throughout. The prior $600 is not assumed to have been earned merely because a consumer made one payment; that earning is an explicit scenario condition.

Example 5 — Counseling refund

Assume a $100 fee was validly charged for educational/counseling services where no debt-management agreement was initially signed.

If the services end on Day 0 and the individual assents to an agreement on Day 60, §13-42-123(5) requires refund of the covered fee.

• Previously collected: $100.
• Required refund: $100.
• Retained counseling fee: $0.

The example assumes the fee was initially authorized and that no other refund or cancellation issue changes the result.

Example 6 — Lower-debt scenario

One enrolled debt: $800. Assume a hypothetical 20%-of-savings contract, with a final settlement payment of $600.

• Savings: $800 − $600 = $200.
• Illustrative fee: 20% × $200 = $40.

This demonstrates the mathematical consequence of a savings-based calculation, not a statutory authorization of 20% or a finding that $40 is reasonable.

E. Component coverage and exact remaining investigations

Researcher self-check

This PASS-01 directly retrieved and read the complete current §13-42-123 and several current Division of Consumer Protection operational pages. The fee calculations above were performed from the stated hypothetical inputs, and the multi-debt allocation was kept consistent.

It did not establish the complete current text of §§102–104, the operative R152-42 rules, the history of adjusted fee ceilings, federal TSR applicability, a provider-specific registration, or controlling judicial interpretations. The failed current statutory URLs and JavaScript-only rule interface are recorded explicitly.

No independent legal review was performed. No applications, account changes, contacts, purchases, browser-tab operations, local files or publication actions occurred.

Disposition: Utah has a demonstrable debt-management registration framework and current statutory fee/timing provisions. However, the market-access exemption matrix, exact currently adjusted consumer charges, and combined state/federal operational permission remain held. This component does not constitute Utah state acceptance, SettleADebt.com launch approval, or A066 acceptance. All other Utah dossier categories remain open.

END S_UT PASS-01