NY State Law Blog Assignment 2 of 2

Case Study:  Check for Understanding Questions

Chet has been an MLO with an origination company called Mount Eagle Loans for about two years, and he has made a lot of friends in that time, because he is one of the good guys. And, you could even say that he is a bit of pleaser. He likes to help his friends and co-workers when they need help, and pleasantly surprise them when he can with some random act of kindness – especially when they are down on their luck.

Let’s look at a couple of recent events as examples.

An applicant named Martha came in to Mount Eagle recently to apply for a mortgage loan, and she met with Chet. And, even though he didn’t really have time to meet with her, Chet was very friendly and helpful. He took her information and documentation, and filled out the application. Then, he sent her on her way.

Chet was short on time because he was working on a surprise for Mount Eagle’s owner, Bev. See, Bev had been on vacation for two weeks and Chet was working on cleaning up the company’s files as a surprise for her when she returned to the office. And, she was due back in two days! Plus, he had decided to design a new business card that he thought might catch on with the office in a big way.

Sure, there might be a little ambition mixed in to his motives, but Chet really is just that much of a pleaser. He likes to make people happy – which is certainly why he passed Martha’s loan off to his co-worker Fred.

Here’s what happened:

An hour or so after Martha left, Fred shuffled over to Chet’s desk and slumped into a chair. Fred was down because he had just gotten notice from the superintendent that his license had been suspended because of a complaint from a former client.

“I can’t afford not to have a job!” Fred said. “I’ve got mouths to feed.”

Ever the good helper, Chet grabbed Martha’s file and tossed it on the desk in front of Fred, and said, “Here, take this.”

“No,” Fred said, “I can’t take money out of your pocket. I’ll figure something out.”

“Look,” Chet said, “I really don’t even have time to really look after that file the way I should, so you would be doing me a favor.”

“Yeah, but I can’t have my name and ID going out on any loans right now, anyway,” Fred said.

“Just use mine,” Chet replied. “It’s already on there, and nobody has to know. Soon, you’ll be back on your feet and no one will the wiser.”

“Thanks, man,” Fred said. “You’re one of the good ones.”

Whether the complaint against Fred was valid or not, he did a pretty good job with Martha’s loan. Sure, there was the appraisal check that she had erroneously sent to the wrong address, but Fred straightened that out. Her loan went on to close a little ahead of schedule, Fred made some much-needed money, and Chet’s name was not tarnished in the process. Everybody won!

But let’s go back in time a little, back to when Chet gave Fred Martha’s loan to take care of. Chet had Martha’s loan off his plate, so he could focus on his covert “spring cleaning” of Mount Eagle’s files. He was keeping the project as quiet as he could because he wanted it to be a surprise for Bev. So, he told as few people as possible about it.  

The good news was that, over time, Chet and his colleagues had amassed quite a roster of clients. They had amassed so many, in fact, that they no longer had room in the office for all of the hard copies of their files. Even the company hard drives were filled to the brim with mostly unique files. It is a good problem to have!

Chet’s first move was to separate out the files that were more than three years old (the cutoff for file retention in New York). He shredded and discarded any hard copies of files that were older than that, and deleted any files that were beyond that age. But that did not make as room either in the office or on the hard drives as he had expected.

So, he decided to rent a secure storage unit to pack away hard copy files that were at least a year old, and he bought four more external hard drives to make more virtual room for digital files. Sure, all of this was on his dime, but he figured Bev would be really happy with the job and the company would probably reimburse him for everything, anyway. And, even if they didn’t, Chet could shoulder some of the burden. After all, Bev and Mount Eagle had been good to him, and he felt he owed them.

Once the file situation was under control, Chet turned his attention to the new business card. He uses the Mount Eagle logo as a faded watermark across the front of the card, with his name and the office address, phone number, and website address front and center. It really only took him about forty-five minutes to nail down, and he is pretty proud of it. And, he knows Bev will like it, too.

Now, in the space below, take some time to answer this question:

Coupling the details of the above case study with what you know about the New York state law from this section of the course, provide 3 examples of what would you have done differently from Chet and/or Fred?

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