Arkansas Mortgage Broker Bond

It starts at $100,000. Under the Arkansas Securities Department's Fair Mortgage Lending Act Rules (Rule 214.00), the penal sum is tiered to the dollar amount of mortgage loans you originated or funded on Arkansas residential real property during the prior calendar year: $100,000 if that volume was $10 million or less, $150,000 if it was more than $10 million but not more than $25 million, and $200,000 if it exceeded $25 million. A brand-new licensee with no prior Arkansas volume posts the $100,000 floor. The authorizing statute, Ark. Code § 23-39-505, fixes the minimum at 'not less than one hundred thousand dollars.'

Arkansas chose a high statutory floor rather than a low flat amount. Many states set a nominal bond in the $10,000–$75,000 range; Arkansas put the entry point at $100,000 and then scales it up with volume. The practical effect is that the premium — not the bond amount — is what varies most between applicants, because a well-qualified company pays roughly 1%–3% of the $100,000 penal sum. It also means you should ignore any quote page that lists a small flat Arkansas figure; the Fair Mortgage Lending Act does not have one.

Yes. Ark. Code § 23-39-505 requires each mortgage broker, mortgage banker, and mortgage servicer to post a surety bond, and Rule 214.00 applies the same volume tiers to all of them. There is not a separate, cheaper "broker-only" bond and a more expensive "banker" bond in Arkansas — the license role determines your other obligations (net worth, audited financials, servicing requirements), but the bond schedule is shared. What differs between two Arkansas licensees is their prior-year Arkansas volume, which sets the tier.

This is the detail most quote pages skip. Ark. Code § 23-39-505 requires the bond to cover claims for at least five years after a licensee stops providing mortgage services in Arkansas — longer if the Commissioner requires it. So the coverage is not simply canceled the day you surrender the license; the surety remains exposed to qualifying claims that arise during that tail period. That five-year run-off is one reason underwriters look closely at your history before writing the bond.

The statute is broad: every bond must provide for suit on the bond by any person who has a cause of action under the Fair Mortgage Lending Act (Ark. Code § 23-39-505). That includes borrowers harmed by a violation of the Act, and the Securities Commissioner acting on their behalf. The surety’s aggregate liability is capped at the principal sum of the bond, and anything the surety pays out you must repay under your indemnity agreement — the bond protects the consumer, not your balance sheet.

You recalculate at renewal, using the prior calendar year's Arkansas residential loan volume. If your Arkansas volume crossed a tier line — past $10 million into the $150,000 tier, or past $25 million into the $200,000 tier — the higher bond needs to be in force for the license year. The tiers work in both directions: a year of lower Arkansas volume can move you back down a tier at renewal. Because the amount is a fixed statutory figure, moving tiers changes your premium base, not a negotiated coverage limit.

For most applicants with reasonable credit, same-day. The Arkansas mortgage bond is an electronic surety bond filed through NMLS to the Securities Department, so once you are approved and the penal sum is set, we place the Department-accepted form and file it electronically. Higher tiers ($150,000 and $200,000) and applicants with credit or financial issues may need additional underwriting, but the $100,000 floor for a well-qualified company is a routine, fast issue.