Mortgage
Loan Officers

Mortgage loan officers often work long hours helping customers with their financial needs. Their employers often do not pay them on an hourly basis, instead offering them a salary that does not reflect the time they put in. According to a Department of Labor ruling, this is wrong, and loan officers are owed overtime pay.

Connecticut Mortgage Loan Officer Lawyer

If you’re a mortgage loan officer who is not being paid overtime in Connecticut, you may have been wrongfully deprived of wages that you earned. Our Hartford mortgage loan officer lawyers at Hayber, McKenna & Dinsmore can help you get what you’re owed. We have experience representing loan officers against their employers, recovering back pay for unpaid overtime. Fill out our online form, so we can review the details of your case.

We are based in Hartford and represent loan officers across the state of Connecticut, including New Haven, Milford, Stamford, and Bridgeport.

The Administrative Exemption

Connecticut and Federal law dictate that employees be paid the minimum wage for all the hours they work, and be paid time-and-a-half for any hours they work over 40  per week.  Some employees are exempt from the requirement to be paid overtime.  Employers in the mortgage industry usually claim that loan officers and loan underwriters are administrative employees.

The administrative exemption only applies if the employee:

• Earns a salary of at least $475 per week;

• Has a primary duty of office or other non-manual work that directly relates to the management or general business operations of the employer, or of the management or general business operations of the employer’s customers;

• Exercises discretion and independent judgment over matters of significance.

Employers frequently misapply this exemption to loan officers and loan underwriters.

In 2010, the U.S. Department of Labor issued an interpretation that said that mortgage loan officers do not fit within the administrative exemption. The DOL found that the fact that an employee’s work was not purely on the production side of a business did not necessarily mean it constituted administrative work. Further, mortgage loan officers’ work is not the management or general business operations of customers because mortgage loan officers give advice for customers on their personal needs

The interpretation was litigated, and the U.S. Supreme Court found in March 2015 in Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Association that the DOL properly came to its interpretation.

Misclassification of Loan Officers in Connecticut

Mortgage loan officers typically work for banks or other financial institutions in an office setting. Their primary duty usually  is to help customers with mortgage applications, an important decision that usually involves amounts of money that are significant to an average individual. They usually have sales goals and are primarily engaged in inside sales

Many employers of mortgage loan officers classify them as exempt administrative employees. This classification is in direct contradiction to a U.S. Department of Labor decision that most loan officers do not meet the administrative exemption.

The law makes a distinction between work relating to administration and work relating to production. Administrative work relates to running the business itself — in this case, the bank or financial institution. Loan officers actually deal with their employers’ product — the loans. Additionally, they do not work with the management of the customers’ business operations, since the loans are ultimately personal.

Damages to Mortgage Loan Officers Mis-classified in Hartford

The decision has been available for years, many employers still classify loan officers as exempt, thus depriving them of significant overtime due to the long hours and weekends they are required to work. If you are a loan officer who has been misclassified as exempt, a Connecticut employment attorney can help you get what you’re owed.

If you have been laid off, fired or let go as a loan officer, your former employer is not relieved of their duty. You can still seek back pay.

Hayber, McKenna & Dinsmore | Hartford Attorney for Loan Officers

If you’ve been misclassified as an exempt employee while working as a loan officer, your employer owes you for the overtime pay you’ve missed. At Hayber, McKenna & Dinsmore, our Hartford loan officer lawyers can help you fight to recover that money. Fill out our online form today so we can read about your case.