Currently viewing the tag: "loan officers"
With all of the advanced warning and instructions we received from the state and many other sources, there can be no gray area when it comes to who has to have a license to originate loans in Arizona and how to get one. This is not the case for some loan officers who continue to ignore the SAFE Act requirements set by lawmakers that took affect on July 1, 2010.
This article is about the country’s lawmakers’ decision to police-up the mortgage industry by requiring loan officers to be licensed and registered nationwide; a law that most states, including Arizona have also adopted. While I have always been a proponent of loan officer (LO) licensing I did not expect to be forced to get one for myself since I am a licensed mortgage broker. A mortgage broker license is much harder to obtain and requires a higher level of achievement for the applicant. So why then are we, mortgage brokers, required to have both licenses? One theory I have is that it will produce more fees. Every year, I now have to pay for two licenses and must fulfill continuing education for both which isn’t free either. Another theory is the weeding out process. If you are in agreement with this theory that more fees and testing and fingerprinting and background checking was all designed to remove the bad apples from the bunch (and we all know there are many of them) well you might be surpised to know that on this basis, the law is a total failure.
