Resources for Loan Officers
McGillivary Steele Elkin LLP has fought on behalf of loan officers and loan processors who were denied overtime pay due to misclassifications and miscalculations. In these cases, the employers improperly classified the loan officers and processors as exempt from receiving overtime pay by incorrectly claiming the employees were paid by commission, or that they were exempt administrators.
In most circumstances, loan officers and processors, as well as some other loan industry employees, are in fact entitled to receive overtime pay for hours worked above 40 in a work week, at a rate not less than 1.5 times the employee’s regular rate of pay. In this context, the term “regular rate of pay” means all compensation for employment paid to an employee except specifically designated payments referred to as “statutory exclusions.”
For example, for loan industry employees, the regular rate of pay must be based on the employee’s base pay plus all non-discretionary bonuses and/or commissions earned in that workweek. Under the law, overtime pay is calculated by adding the employee’s base pay earned in a workweek, the commission the employee receives in that workweek, and the non-discretionary bonus earned in that workweek, and then dividing that by the amount of scheduled hours worked in that workweek and then multiplying that amount by 1.5. The resulting amount is the rate the employer must use to calculate overtime pay for all hours worked over 40 hours in a workweek.
For overtime rate in one workweek:
Are you unsure if you are entitled to overtime pay because of your job title or responsibilities? Regardless of your job title, if the main duties of your job match with the typical standard duties of loan industry employees, you are considered entitled to overtime pay. The typical duties performed by loan industry employees include activities such as:
- Contacting potential customers using leads provided by employer. These leads can be internal company leads, or leads generated by direct mail, websites or other marketing activity. Just one example would be leads generated by a dialer system;
- Collecting required financial information from customers. This could include information about employment history, income, assets, debts, home ownership, and credit history;
- Running Credit reports;
- Entering collected financial information into a computer system that identifies what loan products may be available for the customer;
- Discussing with customers the terms and conditions of various loans;
- Compiling and forwarding information to an underwriter or other employee, and
- Finalizing documents for closing.
It is not necessary for the loan officer to perform each of these tasks to be considered entitled to overtime. Rather, the above is simply a listing of some of the typical job duties for individuals employed under the title of “Loan Officer,” or similar positions.
If you are a loan industry employee with questions about how these issues apply to your individual situation, please feel free to contact us at info@mselaborlaw.com, or fill out our contact form that can be found by clicking Contact Us at the top of the page.
