Looks like the Governor of New Mexico signed SB499 (antipredatory lending legislature) on 04/11. The statute says the law will address loans "made or entered into" after the effective date of the act; no word yet if effective date will be 04/11 or a subsequent date.

The biggest quirk I've seen in this one so far is the APR threshold is tied to a specific security (5 year Tbill weekly average yield), rather than a Tbill of a similar maturity to the loan. P&F threshold is 5% for loans over $30M, so not that different from the other states at the moment.

If anyone sees an effective date defined anywhere please post......

We haven't heard anything from the NMBA yet. I'll post their comments when we do. Do you know if the law signed is substantially the same as the bill presented by Aragon?

*Nobody's* got anything out on it yet! Except of course someone who alerted one of the EVPs here who is now upset about it. Sigh. Looks like it is substantially the same.

Acutally, a saleperson that keeps trying to get my company to sign up with his service says, "four states Mississippi, New Mexico, Utah,and South Dakota) have passed DNC laws in the last two weeks alone!"

I can't be reading this new law right. In the "points and fees" definition it says...all amounts payable by a borrower at or before the closing on the loan proceeds including...fees or premiums for title examination, title insurance or similar purposes; escrows for future payments of taxes and insurance??????...appraisal fees including fees related to any pest infestation or flood hazard inspections conducted prior to closing??????

So let me get this straight. When you do the test to see if your "points and fees" exceed the 5% on a loan amt of $30K, we have to include the appraisal, the flood cert, the termite fee, the escrow for taxes and insurance???? OK, just with that, we've exceed the threshold and we have a high cost loan. Let's just go ahead and consider everything we do in NM a high cost loan!!!!!

Please someone tell me I'm reading this wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, my bad...I am just not having the best day. I found the new version of NM law where I see that someone had the good sense to remove the appraisal, flood, pest fee, escrows, etc from the defintion of points and fees.

I was in a huge panic for a minute there. Whew.

Yes, the original version was a little scary, wasn't it?? Thank goodness someone had a common sense attack along the way and it's a little better (not great, but not quite as horrible.)

I can say this because I'm a third-generation New Mexican. The NM legislature is not widely known for it's logical approach to much of anything!

Hey, I live in Texas. You don't have to tell ME about state legislators!!! (For a definitive catalog of some of their better moves, see Molly Ivin's column.)

In the Southwest is it abodes or adobes???

Regarding NM I don't understand the bill at all. I contacted the Examiner and he even stated that there are some parts of the bill that are fuzzy and he doesn't understand. He went on to tell me that the NM Dept of Financial Institutions were not engaged in the discussions or consulted when this legislation was being introduced. This was the actual manager I spoke with on Wednesday 4/30. He further stated that the LT. Gov. would be meeting with the legislators to begin the mediation process. However, I don't see how that could happen, given the bill has already passed. I just need clarification on "total" points and fees". The company I work at is currently operating in the state under the current law where we are charging total points and fees of 5 1/5% for loan amount on 1st mortgages and 6% in total points and/or orginiation for 2nd mortgages. I am confused and just want to know if I am not the only one in this dilemma? Thanks.

Just received this information today:

The new law doesn't go into effect until January 1, 2004. The Governor has appointed a committee to look at and recommend changes which the Lt. Governor is heading up. The committee is to report by October 1, 2003. NMBA is part of the committee and wants admendments to the bill done so the legislature can approve the changes at their special session. This was part of the bill since many recognized work needed to be done on the bill. NMBA feels the bill can be reworked to where banks will be ok, but they're not sure about the effects on typical mortgage brokers.

I'll let ya'll know if I hear more!

Thanks a lot for the update. I've been having difficulty getting some clarification on this topic from the examiners in the past three weeks. My boss wanted an update and I had been informed that this new law would be going to effect on July 1, 2003. Somehow I knew this could not be true.

If the regulation hasn't even been written yet, your state examiners are probably as much in the dark as everyone else. Let's hope the rewrite does some good!