Metro 2 Special Comment Code B: Account in Forbearance

Specification

Code	B
Meaning	Account in Forbearance
Field	Special Comment (Field 31)
Record	Base Segment
Length / position	2 chars · 213–214
Category	Hardship, Workout and Payment Plans
CRRG reference	CRRG Exhibits 6 & 7 (Special Comment Codes)

Describes a live arrangement. B is accurate only for the cycles the forbearance is actually in force, and it comes off the record in the first file after the forbearance ends.
Forbearance is a pause in collection of payments, not a reduction of what is owed. Interest may continue to accrue and the Current Balance may rise while B is reported, which is normal and not an error.
B does NOT mean the account is delinquent, and it does not by itself make the account current. Account Status and Payment Rating still have to describe the account honestly for the cycle.
B is the short-term code. When the same hardship runs long enough that the arrangement is no longer a brief pause, C (extended forbearance) is the accurate comment.
B does NOT erase a delinquency that occurred before the forbearance began. Entering forbearance does not move the Date of First Delinquency.

1A mortgage servicer grants a three-month payment pause after a documented job loss and reports the loan with a forbearance comment for each of those cycles.
2A credit union suspends payments on a signature loan for a member deployed on short notice.
3An auto lender pauses two payments after a borrower's vehicle is damaged and an insurance claim is pending.
4A private student-loan servicer grants a short hardship forbearance between the borrower's jobs.

Report B beginning in the cycle the forbearance takes effect, not the cycle the borrower first asked for it.
Remove the comment in the first file after the forbearance ends. A stale forbearance comment is inaccurate data the furnisher owns.
Do not use B to hide a delinquency the borrower ran up before the arrangement started. Report the history that actually occurred.
If the terms of the pause are formalized into a structured plan rather than a pause, AB or AU describes it more accurately than B.
Keep the internal record of what was agreed and when. The comment is a summary, not the file.

A file can be structurally valid and still be wrong. These are the cross-field conditions Special Comment Code B has to satisfy.

Account Status must still describe the cycle accurately. If the borrower was current when the forbearance began and the arrangement is being honored, status stays current; forbearance does not automatically make a delinquent account current.
Does not change the Date of First Delinquency. If a DOFD was already established, it stays where it was.
Amount Past Due should reflect the agreement: under a true payment pause, amounts covered by the forbearance are not past due.
Current Balance may increase while B is reported if interest accrues during the pause; that is consistent, not a balance error.
Terms Frequency and Scheduled Monthly Payment normally stay at the contractual values, because forbearance suspends payment rather than re-writing the contract. If the contract itself changed, CN is the accurate comment.