How Do You Find Out If Someone Has a Mortgage Broker License?

I was surfing the web and I came across a website where this question was raised: how do you find out if someone has a mortgage broker license. I was curious to see what the answer would be. I should mention that the question was asked last week.

I hope none of the persons who replied is a mortgage broker because I was stunned to read the answers. One was that very few states license mortgage brokers. Another response was that some states have a database (that is correct but other states who used to have a database have stopped updating them). A third response was checking with the county courthouse. Not one of the responses mentioned the Nationwide Mortgage License System (NMLS).

Every state has passed a form of the SAFE Act which requires that all individual loan officers (called mortgage loan originators in the SAFE Act) must be licensed. If you want to be a mortgage loan originator and you do not want to go through the licensing process, your career path will now include working for a federally-insured depository bank or credit union.

For the past several years, all of the states have implemented some form of mortgage banker and mortgage broker licensing, even if they did not require that individual loan officers be licensed. After the SAFE Act was passed, each state overhauled its licensing laws to comply with the SAFE Act and many states added licensing requirements in addition to what the SAFE Act requires.

Currently, all of the states except Nevada, Maine, Florida and Minnesota have transitioned to the NMLS. All states have a regulatory agency that licenses mortgage bankers, mortgages brokers and loan originators. They are called different names in different states – department of banking, department of financial institutions, commissioner of banks, office of financial regulation. Each agency has a website which describes the licensing requirements and contact information. If you want to know if a particular mortgage banker, broker or loan originator is licensed and the state is not on the NMLS, call the state agency in charge of licensing the mortgage industry and they will tell you if that company or person is licensed.

Additionally, some states used to issue paper licenses which needed to be posted in the mortgage company’s offices. A number of these states have stopped issuing paper licenses and simply refer all questions to the NMLS database. If a mortgage banker wants to see your license, and your state doesn’t print paper licenses anymore, you can print out your record from the NMLS.

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