Mortgage groups are preparing for the trigger leads law to be passed in 2025
The Trigger Leads Act has become a 2025 priority for the mortgage industry after it failed to pass the bill House of Representatives last week despite Senate approval. However, mortgage trade groups remain optimistic about the bill’s prospects in the US 119th Congress.
‘It still has to pass the House [this year]which is technically possible, but very unlikely,” says Brendan McKay, owner of Mckay Mortgage and chief advocacy officer at the Coalition for Broker Action (BAC).
The legislation, introduced by Sens. Jack Reed (D-RI) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN), passed the Senate without amendments on Tuesday. It moved to the House of Representatives, where it qualified for the adjournment calendar — typically used for non-controversial bills that require a two-thirds majority.
However, procedural and policy problems arose at the House Financial Services Committee, led by Patrick McHenry. These issues, including objections to using another legislative vehicle for the bill, mirrored the issues that led to its removal from the Senate’s Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in early November.
The Association of Mortgage Bankers (MBA) said it “will continue to work with other stakeholders in the coalition and our allies in Congress – including a bipartisan group of 93 cosponsors from the House of Representatives and 44 from the Senate – to implement this necessary change in mortgage policy.” credit triggers through renewed advocacy next year in the 119th Congress. .”
The bill aims to restrict credit reporting agencies from sharing credit information without consent, unless the third party requesting the data originates from the mortgage, is the current credit servicer or has a current specified banking relationship with the consumer. The legislation addresses widespread complaints about unsolicited phone calls, text messages and emails.
“Next year will be a test of whether Congress and/or federal agencies can ignore special interests and do something with broad bipartisan support – ban abuse of trigger lead requests from third parties that a borrower doesn’t know or want.” , said Scott Olson. executive director at Association of Community Home Lenders (CHLA). “CHLA is cautiously optimistic that they can do that.”
BAC’s McKay is also optimistic since the bill passed unanimously in the Senate, the more difficult chamber.
“If it is introduced next year, and we lobby congressional offices for support, we can not only make the same logical argument we already have, but we can also point to the fact that 100 U.S. Senators have not objected to this bill . a fact that will make lawmakers feel comfortable putting their names on the bill,” McKay added.
McKay also emphasized that while passing federal laws is inherently challenging, the progress made this year — from inception to near passage — has been “light-speed progress in DC.”
Meanwhile, some pressure may come from credit bureaus, which proposed a softened version of the bill in November. Their suggestion included allowing “written offers” from any company that receives mortgage leads while significantly limiting the number of phone calls.
