You may recall in my previous post about the new Juneteenth holiday’s effect on compliance disclosures, I stated we only had a guess about how the 2021 holiday would affect compliance disclosure since the holiday was established (Thursday June 17, 2021) so close to the first occurrence of the holiday (Saturday June 19, 2021).

In my blog post I gave the following advice:

What does this mean for loans we close or disclose today, June 18, 2021?

If you close a loan today, tomorrow (Saturday June 19, 2021) should NOT be considered a business day for purposes of counting rescission under definition #2 above.  Normally, you would be able to count a Saturday as a business day for purposes of rescission.  But since tomorrow is the actual federal holiday, you would not count it. 

In addition, If you provide a Loan Estimate or Closing Disclosure today, tomorrow should not be counted as a business day for purposes of providing the Closing Disclosure at least three business days prior to closing, or providing the Loan Estimate seven business days prior to closing.

What about in-process waiting periods?

Whether this new holiday will affect the LE and CD waiting periods or rescission periods for loans disclosed/closed earlier this week (before the signing of the law) is uncertain. If you want to be safe, do not consider tomorrow in your counting calculations.

Well, today the CFPB FINALLY issued their official interpretation.  And I just have to comment on a couple of things:

1. It is RIDICULOUS that it took the CFPB nearly two months to issue an interpretation.
2. The interpretation is 11 pages long!
3. Most importantly – THE ADVICE I GAVE WAS RIGHT! And I dearly love being right.

Don’t want to read, the whole interpretation?  Here it is in nutshell in the CFPB’s own words:

For rescission of closed-end mortgages and TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosures, whether June 19, 2021, counts as a business day or federal holiday depends on when the relevant time period began. If the relevant time period began:

• On or before June 17, 2021, then June 19 was a business day.
• After June 17, 2021, then June 19 was a federal holiday.

Additionally, the interpretive rule explains that creditors are not prohibited from providing longer time periods than required, so if a time period began on, or prior to, June 17, 2021, creditors could still consider June 19, 2021, a federal holiday. Friday, June 18, the day of federal observance for the 2021 Juneteenth holiday, was considered a business day because when a federal holiday falls on a Saturday, the day of federal observance is considered a business day for these time-sensitive consumer protections.  

BTW  – “affect” and “effect” are used correctly in the first paragraph. 😉