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An Atlanta-based federal appeals court yesterday dealt another blow to landlords seeking to end a nationwide eviction freeze put in place amid the pandemic, The Hill reported. The ruling by a divided three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals leaves intact the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) eviction moratorium, which is set to run through July. The move comes after the Supreme Court last month voted 5-4 to reject an emergency request from a separate group of landlords who also sought to have the eviction ban lifted, arguing it amounts to unlawful government overreach at a cost of some $13 billion each month to property owners. The eviction pause has faced numerous legal challenges, leading to a patchwork of legal interpretations nationwide on the moratorium's lawfulness. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., held in May that the moratorium was an invalid exercise of the CDC's authority. But the judge, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, delayed enforcement of her ruling, citing the risk to public health if evictions were allowed to proceed. Four of the Supreme Court’s more conservative justices indicated last month that they would have allowed Friedrich's ruling to take immediate effect while the Biden administration appeals. The 11th Circuit case arose when a group of landlords seeking to evict tenants for nonpayment of rent and a rental trade association sued in September. A district court judge rejected their request for a preliminary injunction, prompting their appeal to the 11th Circuit.

Just weeks after the Education Department erased half a billion dollars in student debt for borrowers defrauded by their schools, the agency said on Friday that it would discharge another $55.6 million for students at three other institutions, the New York Times reported. Roughly 1,800 students — at Westwood College, Marinello Schools of Beauty and the Court Reporting Institute — will have all of their debts discharged as part of the so-called borrower defense program, which allows loan holders to file claims to have their debt forgiven if they believe they have been scammed. The Biden administration has now canceled more than $1.5 billion in loans for more than 92,000 borrowers under the program, a significant shift from the previous administration, during which relief efforts largely came to a standstill. And the latest approvals widened the scope of relief beyond a small group of schools. Friday’s approvals were the first since 2017 that wiped out debts at schools other than Corinthian Colleges, ITT Technical Institute and American Career Institute. Those three for-profit institutions are now defunct. “The department will continue doing its part to review and approve borrower defense claims quickly and fairly so that borrowers receive the relief that they need and deserve,” said Miguel A. Cardona, the education secretary. “We also hope these approvals serve as a warning to any institution engaging in similar conduct that this type of misrepresentation is unacceptable.” Former Westwood students accounted for the bulk of the relief delivered on Friday.

The federal eviction moratorium is set to expire at the end of this month, which doesn't leave much time to help an estimated 7 million tenants who are still behind on their rent, NPR.org reported. Efforts have been stepped up to distribute some $46 billion in emergency rental assistance, and to head off eviction cases before they end up in court. Shelley Miller, of the Alexandria Eviction Prevention Partnership in Northern Virginia, says it's a challenge. Her group, which includes several local nonprofits, has been working with city agencies and landlords since last year to help tenants at risk of eviction. "It's been a rough go," she says. "Nobody was prepared for this on any level, any front." Biden senior advisor Gene Sperling warned that the country is in a race with time, with emergency rental aid only trickling out. "We are asking our states and local governments to do everything they can to fill that void in a hurry," he said. "Some are ramping up admirably. Some are lagging. But we all have to do better." The Treasury Department reported last week that only $1.5 billion of an initial $25 billion in emergency aid had been spent by the end of May. More money has started to flow since, but state and local governments have taken months to get their programs up and running. Housing advocates say the next few weeks are crucial. One big challenge is getting the word out more widely that help is available. A recent Urban Institute survey found that a majority of tenants and 40 percent of small landlords don't even know about the emergency rental assistance program, which is available through next September.

One of the federal government’s largest student loan servicers just called it quits, the New York Times reported. The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency — which oversees the loans of 8.5 million student borrowers — said yesterday that it would not renew its contract with the federal government when it ends later this year. The agency, which is known to most borrowers as FedLoan, is one of several companies the Education Department pays to manage the government’s $1.59 trillion student loan portfolio. About 23 million borrowers aren’t making payments right now because of the temporary pause put in place because of the pandemic — and FedLoan’s announcement will only increase the pressure to extend the moratorium. The pause on payments and interest could expire in less than three months — as soon as Sept. 30. The millions of borrowers whose loans are overseen by FedLoan, including those in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, will have to be moved to a new servicer at the same time the machinery of payment processing is getting back up to speed. Turning the switch back on for tens of millions of borrowers was already going to be a monumental task, so consumer advocates and some legislators have been calling for the payment pause to be extended. They argue that the economic recovery has been uneven and that loan payments would have to resume just as other pieces of the pandemic safety net — including eviction moratoriums and enhanced unemployment benefits — are being dismantled. Democrats from both chambers of Congress wrote a letter to President Biden last month urging him to push payments off until at least March 31. The Education Department declined to comment on whether the situation would delay the resumption of payments. But advocates for student borrowers said it is crucial that the system have more time.

Wells Fargo is shutting down all existing personal lines of credit in coming weeks and no longer offers the product, according to customer letters reviewed by CNBC.com. The revolving credit lines, which typically let users borrow $3,000 to $100,000, were pitched as a way to consolidate higher-interest credit card debt, pay for home renovations or avoid overdraft fees on linked checking accounts. “Wells Fargo recently reviewed its product offerings and decided to discontinue offering new Personal and Portfolio line of credit accounts and close all existing accounts,” the bank said in the six-page letter. The move would let the bank focus on credit cards and personal loans, it said. Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf has been forced to make difficult decisions during the coronavirus pandemic, offloading assets and deposits and stepping back from some products because of limitations imposed by the Federal Reserve. In 2018, the Fed barred Wells Fargo from growing its balance sheet until it fixes compliance shortcomings revealed by the bank’s fake accounts scandal.

The White House, along with state and local governments, is under growing pressure to significantly ramp up the amount of emergency rental relief reaching tenants and landlords, as some economists and housing advocates say that the Biden administration’s attention to the eviction crisis is coming too late, the Washington Post reported. Weeks before an eviction moratorium put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expires on July 31, much of the federal aid meant to help tenants and landlords has not reached them. Many are not even aware that the assistance is available, or they continue to struggle with onerous and complicated application rules. Some programs run by state and local governments took months to get up and running. All told, Congress has appropriated roughly $46 billion for emergency rental aid. Of the $25 billion appropriated in December, only $1.5 billion had been spent on rent, utilities and arrears between January and the end of May, according to figures released Friday by the Treasury Department. Treasury does not yet have data on how much of the other $21 billion has been spent, according to an agency official.