Recently the "Battle of The Budget" raged in the halls of Arizona state government and new paths were worn in the flooring from endless pacing by reporters, constituents and all manner of interested parties.
Despite all of the posturing, prognosticating, pandering and pleading...predictably, we still are facing a continued fiscal fiasco with Governor Brewer threatening to scuttle the resulting measure with line-item vetos. Lost in the midst of the attention paid to the state government is a bill that is half-done. If nothing is done to fix this oversight, it will cripple the business of real estate until something is done to fix it.
Below is text from a communique sent out by Lisa Burns, current President of the Southern Arizona Mortgage Lenders Association:
"The state's budget battles are threatening to derail loan originator's ability to earn a living. The loan originator licensing bill, HB 2143, is waiting to be signed by the governor. We believe she will sign it into law, but the legislature failed to the allocate any funds to the Department of Financial Institutions funds to implement the law. In fact, their budget was cut.
DFI and the governor have devised a way to fund the law through a transfer from a fund that is created from civil money penalties paid to the department. This interim funding requires the support of the legislature and they did not pass it.
If DFI does not get the money to fund the LO Licensing bill, they will be forced to license 5000-8000 originators with a limited staff. By law, DFI is required to have completed a review and investigation so that they do not license people with criminal backgrounds or have had complaints or any examination findings against them
IT WILL BE A VERY LONG PROCESS TO BE APPROVED AS AN ORIGINATOR IN ARIZONA. This threatens to keep some originators out of work until DFI can complete their investigation. "
While I applaud the work done to legitimize the loan originator profession through licensing, passing requirements to be fulfilled without having the funds to come up with standards or implement testing procedures causes more harm than good, in my opinion.
This half-measure should wait until next year, so that standards can be examined, testing & enforcement policies can be well thought-out & put in place, etc. To create a requirement for licensing with no way to implement it and to overwhelm a skeleton staff with thousands & thousands of applications will cause the industry to come to a grinding, screeching halt if HB 2143 is signed into law in its present form.
Specializing in Buyer Representation in the Tucson, Arizona real estate market.
"Never forget - Real Estate Is About People"
Kent, like so many of the recent laws that are supposed to help, this one is not well thought out and will most likely cause a bigger mess than we already have.
[This half-measure should wait until next year, so that standards can be examined, testing & enforcement policies can be well thought-out & put in place, etc.]
Yup and it seems I vote against badly written/incomplete bills like this every election.
Howdy there Kent
It sure does seem like State Government, in each and every State, are becoming more like a clown act at a circus. Than really doing anything that helps folks.
Maybe they are planing on to start writing IOU's like California.
I did a post about the NH so called lawmakers.
Maria - your comment brings HVCC to mind...(ptt, pthooey, can't get the taste out of my mouth!)
Candace - our best defense against poor legislation is public outcry BEFORE it becomes law...get the word out!
Dale - at least Circus Clowns only scare some small children!