§ 8.01-465.26.(Effective July 1, 2027) Definitions.

Chapter 17.4 takes effect July 1, 2027, and this section supplies the vocabulary the rest of the chapter builds on. At the center is “consumer debt” — an obligation or alleged obligation of an individual to pay money arising from a transaction where the money, property, insurance, or service involved was primarily for a personal, family, or household purpose. The individual on the hook for that debt is the “consumer.”

Several terms track the debt's history over time. “Charge off” describes a creditor removing the debt as an asset from its own books; “default” describes a failure to satisfy the debt that gives rise to a covered action; and “outstanding balance” is the amount owed at charge off or default, or after disposing of property that secured the debt. “Creditor” is defined by reference to that same timeline — the person to whom the debt was owed at charge off, or at default if it was never charged off — and the definition reaches a debt buyer that picked up the charged-off debt only incidentally, as part of acquiring a larger portfolio that was predominantly not charged off, as long as that buyer was the person owed the debt at the relevant moment.

The remaining terms round out the chapter's mechanics: “finance charge” borrows its meaning from the federal Truth in Lending Act, “secured consumer debt” and “unsecured consumer debt” split debts by whether property backs them, and “record” and “sign” accommodate electronic documents and signatures alongside paper ones.