A bill aimed at limiting the use of debt incentives is not included in the Senate’s Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the Broker Action Coalition informed its members on Wednesday. However, the group has assured members that a backup plan is already in place.
“This bill, along with a number of other provisions, was removed from the current version of the NDAA package,” meaning the “Trigger Lead Bill is unlikely to pass this year,” trade group officials wrote in the letter. directed at partners and lawyers.
In September, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed (D-RI) and Ranking Member Roger Wicker (R-MS) introduced the bill, also known as the Homebuyers Privacy Protection Act of 2024, into the military spending bill, which is expected to be voted on. in the middle of December.
However, skepticism arose after the election due to changes in Congress and concerns that the bill was too restrictive, particularly from Patrick McHenry (R-NC), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Additionally, the credit bureaus advocated a more lenient version of the law.
“While not completely dead, and still a work in progress, it has a long way to go before the end of the year,” wrote BAC executives Katie Sweeney and Brendan McKay. “Conceptually it could go back in, and we’re going to work like hell to try to do that, but we know the facts of the situation.”
The administration emphasized in the message that the bill “gathered 90 co-sponsors in the House and 43 in the Senate, covering more than 130 legislators.” The BAC has held more than 250 meetings on Capitol Hill with lawmakers on this topic.
A trigger lead occurs when a potential borrower’s credit score is pulled for a mortgage application and the credit bureaus sell this data to companies that want to contact the borrower. Although legal, this practice often results in borrowers receiving a barrage of unsolicited phone calls, texts and emails.
Currently, the industry operates on an “opt-in” basis, but Senate Amendment 2358 proposed switching to an “opt-in” model, with no exceptions. This includes situations where the consumer expressly consents to sharing their information, the lender establishes the borrower’s current loan, the lender is an insured depository or credit union with an active account for the borrower, or a loan servicing company.
However, the credit bureaus encourage a simpler approach, which allows companies to ask borrowers by phone if they are the originator of the current loan or the loan officer. They also want an amendment that would allow companies to send “written offers” by mail, email or text to borrowers found through loan directories. BAC also dismissed the credit bureaus from its message by expressing its fight against the bill and the practice of “price gouging.” The mortgage officers told you HousingWire The price of credit reports is expected to increase by at least 20% next year.
“Credit Report costs have doubled from 2022 and we are facing another big increase next year. During that same period, FICO’s stock price increased 480%,” the executives wrote.
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