Mission Accomplished: NAMB solves loan officer exemption issueEric C. PeckNational Association of Mortgage Brokers, U.S. Department of Labor, wages, hour law, outside sales force, Fair Labor Standards Act, FLSA.
DOL issues guidance on compliance with outside sales force
exemptions
The National Association of
Mortgage Brokers has been issued an opinion letter from the
U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) clarifying the wage and hour and
overtime issue as it applies to loan officers. In the March 31
letter, the DOL stated that loan officers can qualify as outside
sales employees, making them exempt from the minimum wage and
overtime requirements of the federal wage and hour law, the Fair
Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
This is a huge victory for NAMB mortgage brokers and for the
entire industry," said NAMB President Jim Nabors II, CRMS. "We
first noticed this problem when an increasing number of NAMB
members were being mistakenly singled out by the DOL, based on wage
and hour rules that were murky at best. It was a long process
requiring considerable resources, but in the end our efforts paid
off. Now every mortgage broker will have DOL guidance on compliance
with outside sales force exemptions under the FLSA. We hope that a
landmark victory such as this will convince more mortgage brokers
to join NAMB and help support our work on behalf of the entire
mortgage broker industry."
A letter from NAMB was originally submitted to the Honorable
Alfred B. Robinson Jr., Deputy Administrator of the Wage and Hour
Division, Employment Standards Administration for the DOL on Sept.
14, 2005. NAMBs letter, authored by President Jim Nabors, requested
a written ruling, approval or interpretation regarding overtime
regulations under the FLSA. Of course, we're very happy with this
outcome," said NAMB President-Elect Harry Dinham. "The role of an
industry association such as NAMB is to help its members stay in
compliance with federal regulations and operate as profitably as
possible. Securing this letter from the DOL does both. It is one of
many victories we have achieved to date, and hope to achieve in the
future.
The March
31, 2006 letter from the DOL to NAMB can be downloaded by clicking
here...
The
Sept. 14, 2005 letter from NAMB to the DOL can be downloaded by
clicking here...
More information on this story can be found in the May 2006
issues of The Mortgage Press.
