Thursday, July 3, 2014

Loan Originator Mortgage License NMLS Education

When the SAFE Act was passed by the US Congress in 2008, it mandated that all States require that Mortgage Loan Originators meet certain minimum requirements to obtain and maintain a Mortgage Loan Originator License. Once of those requirements was Pre-License Education and Continuing Education. The SAFE Act mandated 20 hours of Pre-License Education in order to obtain an LO license and 8 hours of Continuing Education each year in order to maintain and renew an LO License. Over the next couple years, each state passed legislation to meet this federal education mandate and regulators worked with the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System (NMLS) to implement this requirement.

State-Specific Mortgage License Education
When the states passed legislation to meet this federal SAFE Act Education requirement, many of them decided to also require additional education above and beyond the minimum federal requirement of 20 hours of Pre-License Education and 8 hours of annual Continuing Education. Many states require anywhere from 1 to 15 hours of state-specific Pre-License Education and 1 to 3 hours of annual Continuing Education. And as more states have adopted the Uniform State Test (UST) in lieu of a state-specific NMLS Test, many of those same states have decided to recently add additional state-specific education requirements.

Mortgage License Education Types
When the NMLS started working with the states to implement the LO License education requirements, they came up with 3 ways to meet the mortgage loan originator education requirement. Live, Webinar, and Online Instructor-Led. These three options were developed in order meet certain NMLS requirements that the mortgage education course be timed and that there be interaction between the instructor and the mortgage loan originator. The Live and Webinar versions clearly meet this requirement, but for the Online Instructor-Led Course to meet that requirement, but still give the LO the ability to work at their own pace, the NMLS along with the states created a requirement for the online mortgage education course to include questions and answers between the instructor and the Mortgage Loan Originator. The live course is generally only offered to large groups such as large companies that have many LOs that need mortgage licensing continuing education at the same time. Most mortgage education companies offer the Webinar option, but then the LO has to sit through the entire education course all at one time. So most Mortgage Loan Originators prefer the Online Instructor-Led Mortgage License Education Course. You can do it at your own pace and have much more flexibility.

Discounted Mortgage License Education
Since Mortgage Licensing Education is such a large part of the requirement to obtain and maintain a mortgage loan originator license in each state, Integrity Mortgage Licensing has partnered with a mortgage education company to give our customers a 15% discount on the pre-license mortgage education and continuing education. To get 15% off go here: www.integritymortgagelicensing.com/discounted-nmls-mortgage-education

Friday, July 19, 2013

NMLS Continuing Education

It's that time of year again for you to complete your Continuing Education. We recommend having it completed by 11/1 each year to avoid delays in renewing your Loan Originator License.

Integrity Mortgage Licensing has partnered with Mortgage Educators & Compliance (MEC) to offer our customers a 15% discount for all NMLS Approved Pre-License Education and Continuing Education that are now required for loan originator licensing due to the SAFE Act. Go here for the discount: http://www.integritymortgagelicensing.com/discounted-nmls-mortgage-education/

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

NMLS MLO Authorized to Conduct Business with New Employer

How soon can a Loan Originator start taking applications for a new employer once the LO has changed their sponsoring employer in the NMLS?  I am seeing a lot of companies that will request a sponsorship in the NMLS of a new employee and allow the new employee to start taking loan applications that day.  The problem is that requesting a sponsorship in the NMLS doesn’t mean the loan originator is actively sponsored under the new employer yet.  The LO needs to wait until their sponsorship is approved by the state in the NMLS before they can start taking applications for their new employer.  Depending on the state, this can take anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks, but usually takes a day or so in most states.  However, sometimes the sponsorship is not accepted by the state for various reasons.  For example, the LOs residence is too far from the company’s closest location, or the LO is a CA DRE Salesperson and also needs to have the company appointed as their employing broker in CA DRE’s eLicensing System, or the state requires additional documentation to be mailed to them before they can approve the sponsorship request, or the LO needs to update their employer on their NMLS MU4 filing.    These issues can permanently delay a sponsorship request from being approved by the state.  And in these situations you can have an unlicensed LO taking applications for your company for quite a while before you realize the problem. Companies will start seeing this come up in audit findings and be fined by the states, if they aren’t doing this right.  Or they could even have loans that they can’t close if they are a broker, or even worse, they can have loans that they can’t sell if they are a banker.  I just spoke two different companies with this exact problem last week.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

NMLS Approved Pre-License Education and Continuing Education

Integrity Mortgage Licensing has partnered with Mortgage Educators & Compliance (MEC) to offer our customers a 15% discount for all NMLS Approved Pre-License Education and Continuing Education that are now required for loan originator licensing due to the SAFE Act. Go to: Discounted NMLS Education

Monday, June 27, 2011

Texas Mortgage Servicer License/Registration now required

On June 17, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed into law S.B. 17, the Residential Mortgage Loan Servicer Registration Act, which requires all residential mortgage loan servicers in Texas to register with the Commissioner of the Texas Department of Savings and Mortgage Lending (Commissioner). The Mortgage Servicer Registration is required for companies acting purely in a servicing capacity, such as sub-servicers, as well as mortgage bankers acting as residential mortgage loan servicers, i.e. servicing their own portfolios. As of the date of this article, the application for the Mortgage Servicer Registration has not been released by Texas yet. For a copy of S.B. 17, please see http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/82R/billtext/pdf/SB00017F.pdf#navpanes=0.