What To Do When You Don’t Want to Originate From a State Anymore

Are you one of the many mortgage brokers or lenders who applied for numerous state licenses during the housing boom and now you wonder why you are still paying for the licenses and the additional costs associates with those licenses? I’ve counseled all of my clients that at least once a year, they should compare how much they earn from each state against how much each state’s license costs them. Included in the calculations are the costs of the licenses, the filing fee for the annual report to the state’s Secretary of State Corporations Division, the cost of the surety bond, and the payment to the company who acts as your registered agent. If there hasn’t been much origination activity lately, you may decide that it’s not worth the expense of the license and the hassle of keeping the license. What do you do when you decide you want to give up a license?

You can decide to do nothing until renewal season. At that point, you can simply not renew your license. If you choose this course of action, you must comply with all license requirements, even if you do not originate any loans for the entire year.

If you don’t want to wait until the license expires on December 31st, you need to find out the requirements for each state where you want to surrender your license. Some states require prior notice of your surrender of a license. Other states require notice within a certain number of days after you decide to surrender the license. What is the notice that is required? You go to your MU1 record on the NMLS and indicate that you wish to surrender your license in a particular state.

After you change your MU1 record, you may need to take additional action. Some states require a final Annual Report to be filed within a specified number of days after surrender. Other states may have additional forms that you need to submit. If you have branch offices licensed in the state whose license you are surrendering, you must surrender the branch license as well as the company license.

After the state has accepted the surrender of your license, then you can cancel your surety bond and registered agent. Don’t forget to file a Certificate of Withdrawal of your Certificate of Authority to Transact Business as a Foreign Corporation/LLC. Some states charge annual fees if you haven’t withdrawn, regardless of whether you are conducting business in that state or not.