One of the most frequent questions I am asked about judgment enforcement is whether or not the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) applies to someone collecting a debt owed to them - without using an attorney or debt collector. And the answer to that question is "no."
But a question that hardly anybody thinks to ask is: Does the North Carolina Debt Collection Act (NCDCA) apply to me if I am collecting a debt owed to me? And the answer to that is: yes it does. If the debt is "consumer debt" that is.
In 2000, the North Carolina Court of Appeals decided Davis Lake Community Ass'n v. Feldmann, 138 N.C. App. 292. In that case, legal questions arose as to whether a homeowners association, in collecting HOA fees, was acting as a "debt collector" within the meanings of either (1) the FDCPA, or (2) the North Carolina Debt Collection Act.
The Court found that under the FDCPA, the HOA was not a debt collector, as the FDCPA requires that the alleged debt collector be primarily in the business of debt collection. Naturally, this is not the primary business of an HOA, so the act did not apply. However, the Court found no such limitation under the NCDCA. The NCDCA provides that "any person" collecting a debt from a consumer in North Carolina is subject to its provisions. Because of the breadth of that language, the court concluded that the HOA, in its attempts to collect dues from a homeowner, was indeed a "debt collector" within the meaning of the North Carolina Debt Collection Act.
So if you are collecting a consumer debt in North Carolina, you must become familiar with the requirements of the NCDCA.