From the President By David Herzer • 2018-2019 CMA President Page 2 Spring 2019 Points of Interest T here is no time better than now to be amemberoftheCaliforniaMortgage Association. Our Lobbyists are actively working on our behalf to protect our interests in Sacramento, your Board of Directors have hired a new General Counsel, and our Education Committee keeps putting on extremely valuable seminars. We receive great value for our membership dues! TheLegislatureinSacramentocontinuesto churn out more and more laws with which we must keep abreast. It is projected that 1,800billswillbepassedthisyearalone. The new Privacy Act will be the most restrictive intheworldandtheCommitteeinchargeof writing the attendant regulations is calling for industry input. Our Lobbyists, Mike Belote and Mike Arnold, will be attending focus groups and giving our industry’s input. While they cannot change what is sure to be some onerous regulations, they can help to make compliance with this new law less daunting. Also,theDepartmentofBusinessOversight is working on regulations relating to the new disclosure requirements for commercial loans. While they have already succeeded in exempting loans secured by real estate from these new regulations, they are still working to ensure that no consumer protection language creeps into the remaining regulations for unsecured loans. This is important because we do not wantconsumerprotectionrulestobecome any part of commercial lending. Our Lobbyists are also working with the DepartmentofRealEstateonwhatappears to be misunderstanding of AB 4970, the High-Cost Loan rule. Our Lobbyists will be meeting with the Department to provide them with insight into how the law should be interpreted. This cuts to the heart of the business purpose lending exemption, which must be protected at all cost. Next, your CMA Board of Directors has elected a new General Counsel, Robert Finlay who is a Partner at Wright, Finlay & Zak, LLP. There is a wonderful article on Robert in the following pages of this Points of Interest. Please read it and welcome to Robert Finlay! RobertreplacesourinterimGeneralCounsel PatricKellywhodidawonderfuljob. Thank you to Patric Kelly for a job well done and for your service and dedication to CMA! I really want to thank Lori Randich and the Education Committee for all of their hard work. The Winter Seminar in Newport Beach was by all reports a resounding success with great presentations on consumer lending, loan underwriting, and Keynote Session presented by Dr. Christopher Thornberg. We can all look forward to the Spring Seminar coming up April 25 and 26 at the stately Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Theseminartopicsrangefromconstruction lending to defending against loan fraud and will certainly energize, entertain and educate the best of the best in the private money lending business. So I look forward to seeing all of you in San Francisco. Don’t forget to arrive early for the Wednesday night networking cocktail party. You might do some business with your fellow CMA members! The Work of the CMA Continues in 2019