State and Federal Laws Require Mortgage Training For New Loan Officers
The Housing and Economic Recovery Act – HERA – is helping in an effort to develop a nationwide system for licensing mortgage organizers in conjunction with the SAFE Act – Secure and Fair Enforcement for Mortgage Licensing Act which will require all residential loan originators to either be federally registered or state licensed.
New federal laws require every loan officer in the country to register with the NMLS – the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System; it also requires eight hours of continuing education; however each state may have a slightly different amount of hours of continuing education requirements.
Mortgage training for those loan officers who are new to the mortgage business would also include background checks and continuing education as part of any new laws passed concerning mortgage brokers and mortgage loan officers in those states that do not have laws already in place concerning their mortgage loan officers. There is a national loan officers licensing law which debuted July 1 of this year and is helping to keep the mortgage loan officers on the straight and narrow.
In addition to mortgage education programs and schools online, there are countless numbers of mortgage exam prep websites that will help those individuals seeking a new career in the mortgage lending business. Just as with a lawyer or a beautician, a mortgage lender needs to be licensed to ‘practice’ or perform the duties of a mortgage lender.
In order to keep loan officers regulated, the law requires that every state have a system in place that meets certain national minimum standards and national definitions that, among other things, includes: testing and pre-licensing education; continuing education; credit background checks and criminal history background checks.
The reason for the criminal background checks and credit checks for the loan officers is so that unscrupulous or predatory lenders do not ‘slip through the cracks’ and start making loans that people cannot afford which is what started the housing crisis in the first place.
No matter what type of business or services a company is offering, especially a nationwide service such as mortgage loans, it’s a good idea to have checks and balances in place to help things runs more smoothly and without incident.

