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

S_VA PASS-04 — Bounded correction addendum to PASS-02

Actual fresh access date: October 24, 2026, Pacific Scope: claim identity, § 50(B)’s predicate, and source-access qualifications only.

This addendum does not rerun the three PASS-02 interpretation searches, replace PASS-02, or treat PASS-03 as reviewed. It preserves the original S_VA-P2-C001 through C011 identifiers and corrects only which claims support the two mislabeled narrative conclusions.

The three substantive holds remain open:

1. fees for a later settled debt that has not received its own creditor payment;
2. treatment of a genuinely independent account administrator’s ordinary charge; and
3. refund treatment of a properly incurred § 6.2-2016 reimbursement.

The historical Medium provenance remains unchanged. Nothing here retroactively changes the model or effort provenance of PASS-02.

A. Exact narrative-to-canonical-claim map

Exact identity corrections

• The PASS-02 narrative § 2 heading “S_VA-P2-C002 — PARTIAL / HELD” was overbroad. That discussion must be mapped across C002, C003, and C004.
• The PASS-02 narrative § 3 heading “S_VA-P2-C003 — HELD, materially narrowed” was incorrect. That discussion must be mapped across C005, C006, C007, C008, and C009.
• No original claim ID is deleted, renumbered, or silently repurposed.

B. Replacement passages

B1. Replacement for PASS-02 narrative § 2, “Current conclusion”

Corrected conclusion — S_VA-P2-C002, C003, and C004

Section 6.2-2040(6) contemplates an account administrator that is not owned, controlled by, or affiliated with the settlement provider and that does not give or accept compensation in exchange for referrals involving the provider. Those independence and referral conditions are the subject of S_VA-P2-C002. The statute also confirms consumer ownership of the account funds and limits the provider’s deduction on withdrawal to its own lawfully earned fee for completed services, subject to § 6.2-2041. It does not expressly authorize or prohibit every ordinary charge that a genuinely independent administrator might impose. Virginia Law

Section 6.2-2041(C) independently bars a settlement licensee from charging or receiving another consumer fee or compensation for providing debt-settlement services beyond the fee authorized by that section. S_VA-P2-C003 also incorporates 10VAC5-230-50(B), but only with its express predicate: the agreement must have been set up or established by a person other than a credit counselor of the licensee. In that circumstance, the licensee must ensure that total fees charged in connection with the debt-settlement services—including enrollment or agreement-setup fees—remain within § 6.2-2041. Section 50(B) is therefore not a universal adjudicated classification of every independent account-administration charge. Virginia Law+1

Section 50(H) separately prohibits a licensee or person required to be licensed from directly or indirectly evading Chapter 20.1 or Chapter 230. That anti-evasion provision remains relevant to disguised or routed charges, but it does not by itself decide whether a particular genuinely independent account charge is compensation for debt-settlement services. Virginia Law

S_VA-P2-C004 therefore remains the operative hold: no source read in PASS-02 or this correction expressly authorizes an ordinary independent account-maintenance or transaction fee outside § 6.2-2041, but the identified provisions also do not support a categorical statement that every genuine independent account charge is prohibited. Classification remains dependent on the actual service, payee, economic beneficiary, affiliations, referral arrangements, agreement origin, and whether the charge is in substance connected with providing debt-settlement services.

Effect of the correction

The corrected conclusion is narrower than the original narrative:

• C002: account administrator independence and referral conditions.
• C003: licensee additional-fee prohibition and the predicate-limited § 50(B) aggregate rule.
• C004: unresolved ordinary independent account-charge classification.

It is not permissible to cite C002 alone for the broader hold.

B2. Replacement for PASS-02 narrative § 3, “Current conclusion”

Corrected conclusion — S_VA-P2-C005 through C009

Section 6.2-2014(1)(v) requires a DMP agreement to provide for return of all undistributed creditor-payment funds and, in the specified early-termination periods, either all fees paid or all fees paid less the setup fee. That current refund text is the subject of S_VA-P2-C005. Virginia Law

Section 6.2-2016 separately prohibits other amounts with respect to a DMP except, following disclosure and the consumer’s advance permission, reimbursement for the actual cost of one credit report and related information and actual bank charges for automatic account debiting for debt repayment. That current actual-cost condition is the subject of S_VA-P2-C006. Virginia Law

S_VA-P2-C008 remains a bounded textual inference: when the identified cost was not actually incurred—or the amount collected exceeds the actual cost—the excess or unincurred amount lacks § 6.2-2016’s stated reimbursement basis. This does not require deciding whether a properly incurred reimbursement is a “fee” for cancellation-refund purposes. Virginia Law

S_VA-P2-C007 is historical terminology evidence only. PASS-02’s source S012 consisted of a partial substantive retrieval from an official search result followed by a Unicode failure on direct opening. It did not establish that the complete 2004 enactment was read. The historical excerpt therefore cannot establish complete statutory architecture, currentness, or a controlling construction of “fees” versus “reimbursement.”

S_VA-P2-C009 remains unresolved: no source read in PASS-02 or this correction decides whether a properly incurred, disclosed, advance-authorized § 6.2-2016 reimbursement must be returned under § 6.2-2014(1)(v)’s phrase “all fees paid.” The terminology difference is evidence relevant to construction, but it is not itself a controlling holding.

Effect of the correction

The reimbursement-refund discussion must not be labeled C003. Its correct support is:

• C005: current cancellation-refund text;
• C006: current actual-cost reimbursement authorization;
• C007: narrow historical terminology evidence only;
• C008: unincurred-cost inference; and
• C009: properly incurred reimbursement refund remains unresolved.

B3. Replacement access and evidentiary qualification

Corrected access qualification

PASS-02 source S_VA-P2-S012 was not a complete read of 2004 Acts, Chapter 790. The actual access consisted of substantive text surfaced through an official-search result, followed by a Unicode decoding failure when the direct source was opened. Only the surfaced text may be attributed to that source. No unreturned section, page, clause, enactment provision, or complete-document architecture may be inferred from it.

PASS-02 sources S_VA-P2-S009 and S_VA-P2-S014 were reporting materials, not fee-earning rules. The current CCB-11006 annual-report form separately requests totals for settled debts and fees charged and received under § 6.2-2041. Those fields establish reporting categories only; they do not decide when the fees became earned or collectible. Virginia SCC+1

The previously cited public URL for S014 returned a 404 during this correction’s single fresh access attempt. No new substantive reliance is placed on that inaccessible route.

The 2021 final order states that the Bureau filed a Response to Comments on October 1, 2021 and that the Commission adopted modifications generally consistent with that Response, subject to one identified exception. The published order does not reproduce the full Response. The underlying Response therefore remains unread and cannot be used to supply an interpretation that does not appear in the order or operative regulation. Virginia Register+1

C. PASS-04 fresh-source table

Prior source not freshly reopened

S_VA-P2-S012 — 2004 Acts, Chapter 790 Prior literal URL:

https://legacylis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?041+ful+CHAP0790+pdf=

PASS-04 preserves the historical PASS-02 access record: partial substantive official-search retrieval followed by direct-open Unicode failure. It does not relabel that event as a complete document read.

D. PASS-04 material claim table

E. Original PASS-02 claim patch map

F. Coverage and unresolved-dependency table

G. Access and scope self-check

Freshly reopened for this correction:

• current 10VAC5-230-50(B) and (H);
• current §§ 6.2-2040(3), 6.2-2040(6), and 6.2-2041(A)–(C);
• current § 6.2-2014(1)(v) and § 6.2-2016;
• the published 2021 final order passages identifying—but not reproducing—the Bureau Response; and
• the current available CCB-11006 reporting form, including visual inspection of its operating-data page.

Not freshly reopened:

• P2-S012’s 2004 enactment route. Its original partial-retrieval/Unicode-failure status is preserved rather than upgraded.
• Any underlying October 1, 2021 Bureau Response.
• Any court or SCC interpretation search.
• PASS-03 sources or conclusions.

The prior S014 URL was attempted once and returned 404; no repeated blocked-route loop was used.

No new fee or calendar example is provided because each substantive permission issue assigned here remains unresolved. This is a correction addendum, not independent review, full-state completion, A066 acceptance, or publication-ready legal analysis.

END S_VA PASS-04.