There’s a Washington State Mortgage Broker Commission meeting tomorrow, May 7th at the Renton Community Center to discuss the impact of State Senate Bill 6471. This legislation ammends the Consumer Loan Act and Mortgage Broker Practices Act requiring all lenders to become licensed under the Consumer Loan Act (except those licensed under RCW 63.14)
This change in the state law was put in place to close a loophole. Some mortgage brokers were issued an exemption certificate by their regulator, DFI, because they had received approval as a Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac direct lender. Though still subject to the MBPA, these lenders, an estimated 300, were operating with no state regulatory oversight. This loophole is now closed.
Mortgage brokers are complaining loudly that this change will cost their firm lots of money. I would like to see the raw numbers on their estimates.
I will be attending tomorrow’s meeting, and if I can catch a wifi signal, I will blog live.
This does not appear to be a “closed” meeting since DFI is indicating that the room capacity is 100. I received no notice about this meeting, which is odd, since DFI is always very good about notifying all of us via their listserve.
Time: 1:00 PM
Location: Renton Community Center
Address: 1715 Maple Valley Highway, Renton 98057
Driving Directions
I could not access wifi at the community center so now I have to go through 9 pages of notes.
Short version: If you’re a pure broker, and do NOT have a
correspondent/warehouse line, you don’t need a CLA license.
If you’re a broker AND ALSO a correspondent lender with a warehouse credit line, you can chose to only go with a
CLA license or maintain both licenses (the MBPA license, and also a CLA license.) Both options have positives and negatives.
Most important next step is to define the word “lender.”
I know how RESPA defines it.
Pure brokers are not lenders.
More later.