On March 12, Alston & Bird Partner Nanci Weissgold, and Senior Associate Lisa Lanham issued a Client Alert on Ohio Division of Financial Institution’s (“Division”) guidance on clarification of legislative amendments (as enacted by HB 489 and currently in effect as of March 20, 2019) to the Ohio Residential Mortgage Lending Act (“RMLA”), that requires mortgage loan servicers to be registered under the RMLA. The Division answered the industry’s question as to whether the registration requirement would apply to passive secondary market investors in Ohio Mortgage Servicing Rights (“MSRs”). Accordingly, the Division issued answers to its Frequently Asked Questions to provide guidance and explicitly stated that even though a passive secondary market investor in MSRs is not conducting any direct servicing activities, it is still required to be licensed or registered as a mortgage servicer under the RMLA amendments.
The Client Alert can be found here on our website.