6-983. Required accounting practices and records; escrow of monies; disclosure

A. A commercial mortgage banker shall keep and maintain at all times correct and complete records as prescribed by the superintendent that will enable the superintendent to determine whether the licensee is complying with this article. If the commercial mortgage banker operates two or more licensed places of business in this state, after notifying the superintendent, he may maintain such records at his principal place of business in this state, except that a commercial mortgage banker, with the approval of the superintendent, may maintain the records outside of this state. For records kept outside this state, a commercial mortgage banker shall make the records available to the superintendent in this state not more than three business days after demand and shall provide for the acceptance of collect calls or provide a toll free telephone number to borrowers to obtain information from the records if the licensed place of business in this state cannot readily provide the information requested by the borrowers. A commercial mortgage banker shall maintain original documents or clearly legible copies of all commercial mortgage loan transactions for at least two years from the date of the commercial mortgage loan closing.

B. A commercial mortgage banker shall observe generally accepted accounting principles and practices.

C. If a commercial mortgage banker requires an advance or fee to be paid in connection with an application for a commercial mortgage loan there shall be a written agreement. The parties shall sign the written agreement, and the agreement shall contain terms pertaining to the payment of the fee or disposition of the advance or fee, whether the loan is finally consummated or not, and a term for which the agreement is to remain in force before return of the advance or fee for nonperformance can be required. The licensee shall immediately deposit advances or fees in a trust account in a bank, savings bank or savings and loan association that is fully insured by the federal deposit insurance corporation or any successor agency, and the advances or fees shall not be commingled with other monies. The trust account shall designate the licensee as trustee and shall provide for withdrawing the monies without previous notice. Withdrawals shall only be disbursed according to the terms of the agreement. A licensee who receives advances or fees shall preserve and on request make available to the superintendent all deposits, withdrawal receipts and statements of account rendered by the bank, savings bank or savings and loan association. The licensee shall further preserve all agreements between the parties involved in the transaction and all contracts, agreements and instructions to or with the depository and shall keep an accurate accounting of each separate bank account in which the trust monies have been deposited. If the loan is declined by or on behalf of the lender or canceled by the applicant, all documents provided by or at the expense of the applicant, including any appraisal, are the property of the applicant. At the applicant's discretion, the documents shall be returned or transferred to any designated financial institution or enterprise without additional consideration except for fees for which the applicant has previously contracted, if the document is not prohibited by law from being transferred or returned.

D. If periodic payments are to be collected from the mortgagor to provide for payments by the mortgagee of taxes, assessments, insurance premiums, ground rents or other current charges against the real estate security, the estimated payment amount stated to the mortgagor by the commercial mortgage banker shall be such that the total of these payments collected for each category during the tax or other period will approximate the actual tax or other payment when due. The licensee shall annually account to the borrower for all such periodic payments of taxes, assessments, insurance premiums, ground rents and other current charges and, to the extent monies have been collected for payment, shall pay them promptly.