2. Service contracts. Service contracts include contracts for the repair or the servicing of goods, such as mechanical breakdown coverage, even if such a contract is characterized as insurance under state law.

3. Rebates. The creditor has complete flexibility in the way it treats rebates for purposes of disclosure and calculation. (See the commentary to § (b).)

1. General. The coverage of this term is defined by exclusion. Subpart C contains the disclosure rules for closed-end credit when the obligation is subject to a finance charge or is payable by written agreement in more than four installments.

(11) Consumer means a cardholder or natural person to whom consumer credit is offered or extended. However, for purposes of rescission under §§  and , the term also includes a natural person in whose principal dwelling a security interest is or will be retained or acquired, if that person’s ownership interest in the dwelling is or will be subject to the security interest. For purposes of §§ (c) through (e), (c), , and , the term includes a confirmed successor in interest.

A servicer may not require a confirmed successor in interest to assume the mortgage loan obligation to be considered a consumer for purposes of §§ (c) through (e), (c), , and

1. Scope. Guarantors, endorsers, and sureties are not generally consumers for purposes of the regulation, but they may be entitled to rescind under certain circumstances and they may have certain rights if they are obligated on credit card plans.

2. Rescission rules. For purposes of rescission under §§  and , a consumer includes any natural person whose ownership interest in his or her principal dwelling is subject to the risk of loss. Thus, if a security interest is taken in A’s ownership interest in a house and that house is A’s principal dwelling, A is a consumer for purposes of rescission, even if A is not liable, either primarily or secondarily, on the underlying consumer credit transaction. An ownership interest does not include, for example, leaseholds or inchoate rights, such as dower.

3. Trusts. Credit extended to trusts established for tax or estate planning purposes or to land trusts, as described in comment 3(a)-10, is considered to be extended to a natural person for purposes of the definition of consumer.

If a successor in interest assumes a mortgage loan obligation under State law or is otherwise liable on the mortgage loan obligation, the protections the successor in interest enjoys under this part are not limited to §§ (c) through (e), (c), , and

iimunications with confirmed successors in interestmunications in compliance with this part to a confirmed successor in interest as defined in § 1026.2(a)(27)(ii) do not violate section 805(b) of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) because consumer for purposes of FDCPA section 805 includes any person who meets the definition in this part of confirmed successor in interest.

iii. Treatment of transferor consumer. Even after a servicer’s confirmation of a successor in interest, the servicer is still required to comply with all applicable requirements of §§ (c) through (e), (c), , and with respect to the consumer who transferred an ownership interest to the successor in interest.

iv. Multiple notices unnecessary. Except as required by Regulation X, 12 CFR , a servicer is not required to provide to a confirmed successor in interest any written disclosure required by § (c), (d), or (e), § , or §  if the servicer is providing the same specific disclosure to another consumer on the account. For example, a servicer is not required to provide a periodic statement required by §  to a confirmed successor in interest if the servicer is providing the same periodic statement to another consumer; a single statement may be sent in that billing cycle. If a servicer confirms more than one successor in interest, the servicer need not send any disclosure required by § (c), (d), or (e), § , or §  to more than one of the confirmed successors in interest.