How To Sign Georgia Banking PDF

Industry sign banking georgia agreement mobile

in unit 6 we're going to cover financing and you know statistics in this industry have shown if a dealer has the ability to offer some type of financing options for your customers you're going to sell a much higher number of vehicles and you know i do know dealers that just tell every customer to bring in cash and you know you're basically turning away about ninety percent of your customers by demanding a customer just bring in cash to purchase a motor vehicle from you so offering financing can definitely increase your sales and you know there are basically two types of financing that you can offer your customers on the spot financing and by here pay here on the spot financing is a term used obviously when you have a relationship with a third-party lender such as a bank or an online dealership lending service when your customer wants to purchase a vehicle you can obviously just log on to that third-party lender on your computer input your customers information such as their name birthday social security number and then click submit and you know then the third prior third-party lender will process that application and hopefully approve the lending on the spot and that is where the term on the spot lending originated so uh you know if the third party lender approves your customers loan which more than likely they will uh the customer is going to make payments to that third party lender and the third party lender will then transfer that purchase price into your account normally within about one to three business days and no matter what we can probably help our customer get financing regardless of their credit whether their credit's good whether it's bad maybe they've had some bankruptcies then most of these third-party lenders will be able to assist us in getting that subprime lending and although that customer you know this this going through subprime they are going to pay a lot higher interest rate but if they are you know making their payments then we are actually assisting them in rebuilding their credits so uh also buy here pay here dealerships obviously operate just a little bit different and if you have chose to become a buy here pay here dealership you know you might for example purchase a vehicle at an auction and then sell it to your customer with you know the customer making payments directly to your dealership but i want you to be aware regardless of the type of financing that you might offer if you offer any type of financing or simply assist your customer in gaining a loan for the vehicle you're selling you will be recognized as a loan broker brokering loans does require you to follow several state and federal laws and we are first going to cover some georgia laws that will affect financing and then we're going to discuss some federal financing laws because the federal government tends to have a little bit more oversight on financing and all the laws that you will be required to follow so first a law that you need to be aware of regarding financing vehicles is the georgia motor vehicle sales finance act georgia law requires all retail installment contracts to be in writing and a retail installment contract shall be in writing and shall be signed by both the buyer and the seller which would be you the dealer and shall be completed as so all essential provisions prior to the signing by the buyer so as a reminder installment contract will normally contain all the information regarding the financing so that's going to show you know when the payments are due when the payment would go into default when a possible repossession would take place hopefully that won't happen but the dealer must present a completed copy of the installment contract to the buyer at the time it is signed by the buyer if you do not provide a copy of your buyer uh they can receive a refund of all the payments that are made and as a reminder we always want to make two copies of every document so one copy of every document is going to go to the buyer and one copy is going to go into the dealer record so remember we're always making two copies of everything and once again you will never ever have too much paperwork but you could have not enough paperwork so you definitely want to make copies of everything remember one copy goes to the customer and one is always going to go to the dealer records you must also ensure the installment contract has a space for the buyer to sign stating that they have received a copy of the installment contract so your your customer actually has to sign that document stating that they have received copies from you the dealer if you're using a third party lender be sure the paperwork that you're using uh and is being printed during the loan application is compliant with georgia laws in addition to all federal laws so no matter what if you are sure shopping you know third-party lenders uh online you know ask them if they're compliant with georgia law you know ask them if they are going to allow you to comply with the georgia motor vehicle sales finance act if a person with that software provider says well what is the georgia motor vehicle sales finance act well obviously we don't want to use that third party lender so we want to make sure that any company we're using as a third-party lender is complying not only with federal laws but we want to make sure they're going to assist us in complying with georgia law including all aspects of the georgia motor vehicle sales finance act if you're operating a buy here pay here dealership be sure the documents completed by your attorney on every transaction are also compliant with georgia and federal law so you know all georgia installment contracts must contain the following information clearly has to disclose the notice to the buyer that tells the buyer do not sign this contract before you read it or if it contains any blank spaces so we can never have any spaces like i said on the title or any type of finance installment contracts also the somas contract must tell the customer they are entitled to an exact copy of that contract they're signing so once again i want to reiterate we're always going to be making two copies of everything one's going to go to the customer one goes to the dealer records and when we talk about financing the customer is going to sign docs stating that they have received copies of everything so uh you know also just remember they will have to sign those docs to ensure that you have actually given them copies but before i talk about federal finance laws i want you to be aware that federal law does what we say supersedes state law so you know although we are following all of the state laws that come out of atlanta we're also following many of the stricter federal laws which come out of washington and there does tend to be many more federal laws that cover financing than state law and i'm going to cover some of these with you now including the truth in lending act the equal opportunity act and the very important grammleage blindly privacy act so let's go ahead and start our federal lending laws right here let's start with that very important truth in lending act okay the truth in any act requires you to disclose all credit terms in writing and must disclose the following information in writing to any customer that is obtaining a loan for a vehicle so in in writing we're going to show that customer the length of the time of the loan we have to show the customer the amount financed all finance charges a schedule of the payments we have to show the identity of the accreditor the itemization of the amount finance the annual percentage rate including applicable variable rate disclosures those must be included that form is also going to show a total of all the payments so you're familiar with this formula sure if you've ever financed vehicles in the past or if you haven't and even if you've gotten your own car loan on a vehicle maybe that you purchased you've seen this great big long document on that transaction it's got to also include the payment schedule any type of prepayment or late payment penalty fees if applicable a total sales cost the demand feature a security interest you know if there's any liens involved or anything like that insurance the required deposits got to be in writing and also what's called the reference to contract so you know if you're using a third party lender this should print up for you every single time you hit the print button but if you are going to be a buy here pay here dealer or if you currently buy here pay here dealer make sure your attorney's documents that is being drawn up for you uh to help you become a buy here pay here dealer uh is compliant with the truth in lending act so just remember we've got to provide written disclosure to all credit terms to each and every customer when financing is involved next let's cover the equal credit opportunity act the equal credit opportunity i want to i want you to be aware when you're helping your customers gain financing you're also going to be following the federal equal credit opportunity act the equal credit opportunity act ensures that all consumers are given an equal chance to obtain credit so you know factors such as income expenses debt credit history are still taken into consideration when approving or disapproving credit but anyone involved in granting credits such as automobile dealers who arrange financing through third-party lenders and automobile dealers that are offering buy here pay your financing and also motor vehicle dealers that act as a lien holder of finance motor vehicles must follow the equal credit opportunity act so you know as a creditor you may not discourage your customers from applying for credit because of their sex or their marital status or their age their race their national origin or because they receive public assistance income from the government you can also never ask your customer to reveal their sex or their race or their ass their national origin of the religion so think about this it's very important you know during a loan application interview obviously we're going to be asking that customer a lot of questions but there are so many questions such as the ones i just mentioned that we are strictly prohibited from asking during a loan application interview you can never ask your customer uh if they're widowed or divorced or maybe you know if someone's uh applying for a loan we cannot ask them about their marital status or request information about the customers or spouse unless the spouse is renewing with the customer or applying for that loan i also want you to be aware it is against federal law to ever ask a customer if they receive child support now i want to repeat that you may never ask your customer if they receive child support you can ask the customer if they receive other income but we can never ever ask a customer if they receive child support you can't ask your customer for plans about having or raising children so you know you might just think you're having a good old time with a nice young couple and you're doing their loan application and maybe you say hey are you two thinking about starting a family well if you ask that during a loan application interview you have broken the law so we're never going to ask any type of personal or invasive questions uh whatsoever during that loan application interview that would be a violation of the equal credit opportunity act okay now also you can't consider whether your customer has a telephone listed in their name there's just a little technicality and also you may not consider your customers age unless they're too young to sign contracts and in the state of georgia that's going to be 18 years of age so uh also i want you to be aware you can never refuse to consider public assistance income as any other income so what i mean by that let's just say for example you're a bang here pay here dealer and let's say you've got one customer that makes two thousand dollars a month working at some factory and then you have another customer that maybe makes two thousand dollars a month from some type of government public assistance program we have to identify those identically okay we cannot differentiate between public assistance income and employment income because that's about another violation of the equal credit opportunity act we also may never assume a woman of child bearing age will stop working to raise children we certainly can't make that and also you can never refuse to consider uh regular support payments or and like i said you just never want to ask a customer any personal or invasive questions but uh you know if you are a buy here pay here dealer or you're working with that third party lender then we must let the customer know in writing specifically why their credit application was rejected okay and you've got to do this within 60 days so the dealer must give the customer a notice that tells them the specific reasons for the rejection of a credit application so i want you to be aware you know acceptable reasons would be you know your income was too low or you haven't been employed long enough we have to be real specific on the reasons for the declination you know unacceptable reasons for declining credit applicant would be some random statement like you know you didn't meet enough our minimum standards or you didn't receive enough points on our personal dealer credit scoring system or something like that so you can't be read you have to they just be real direct and tell them maybe your income was too low or you haven't been employed long enough because indefinite and vague reasons are illegal under the equal credit opportunity act so you have to be very specific on exactly why you are denying a credit application so when you send an individual's application for financing to a third-party lender the lender can give you information about why that loan was denied so you can pass that information along to the credit applicant so you know the equal credit opportunity act permits a creditor here you know say for example a third party lender to disclose the reasons for taking adverse action through a third party uh such as a car dealer when the third party submits an application to the creditor but uh i want to read a very part important part of this law to you and the one of the most important parts of the equal credit opportunity act states that credit applicants that have been denied equal lending opportunities under the equal credit opportunity act may recover damages from your dealership for up to five hundred thousand dollars or one percent of your net worth whichever is less i want to repeat that very very important statement credit applicants that have been denied equal lending opportunities under the equal credit opportunity act may recover punitive damages from your dealership for up to five hundred thousand dollars or one percent of your net worth whichever is less so compliance compliance compliance it is definitely the name of the game so you know i want you to be aware you know if you are say for example maybe you're using that third party lender to do the financing for you as we discussed a little bit earlier you know more than likely that third party lender will either allow you to download the software onto your computer or maybe you're using some type of cloud-based system but they are always going to have specific questions on your computer screen that you ask the customer during a loan application interview in fact i even know sometimes a dealer will turn that laptop around or whatever and basically let that customer fill out the information on a loan application interview but with that being in uh in mind you're gonna have specific questions that you're asking the customer so you know you're gonna it may say you know ask the customer how long they've been employed ask the customer what their total monthly household income is you know you don't want to reach around your computer and ask that customer hey are you married or something like that during a loan application interview that would be a clear violation of federal law so no matter what third party lender you're using make sure just stay on those questions that you see on that third party software if you are a buy here pay here dealer then you know you ant to make sure and have some legal guidance that uh so that by here pay here dealer attorney will maybe hopefully have some type of document uh for you and uh i want you to also be aware there are some third party lenders believe it or not they will run your buy here pay here for you so that's something to keep in mind if you haven't used a third party lender or if maybe you're exploring using a different one you can certainly go to your favorite search engine maybe it's google maybe it's uh yahoo maybe it's bing and just type in georgia third party lender or maybe georgia dealer financing and you're going to see a lot of companies right there that are just waiting to give loans to your customers regardless of their credit or if you want to be a buy here pay here dealer maybe this is something you haven't already done it is absolutely imperative that you get some legal advice to basically draw up your installment contracts and things like that but uh if you are buy here pay here dealer you know obviously you're aware there can be that big snowball effect of income uh when all of our customers are making their payments on time so uh but we don't normally that's not normally uh the case okay but let's keep let's go ahead and move on on the next screenshot here you're going to see the what's called the graham leach blindly privacy act okay the grammy's blind privacy act includes provisions to protect consumers financial information that's held by financial institutes and these regulations apply to financial institutes not only banks but you know any company that might be offering financial products and services to customers such as us a motor vehicle dealer so among these services are you know lending brokering or servicing any type of consumer loan collecting consumer debts and many other financial activities are going to fall underneath the gram leads blindly privacy act okay there are basically three parts to the grambling privacy act requirements there's the financial rule there's a safeguards rule and then there's what's called the pre-texting provision so let's first talk about the financial privacy rule the financial privacy rule governs the collection and disclosure of a customer's personal financial information by the financial institute such as a licensed motor vehicle dealer the financial privacy rule requires financial institutes just like a dealer that's brokering loans to give their customers privacy notices that explain the dealer's information collection and sharing practices so you know in turn customers do have the right to limit some of the sharing of their information so uh you know any software program that you're using for financing they are going to hopefully have an automatically generated privacy disclosure statement that you can provide to the customer and that's going to keep you compliant with the financial privacy rule of the gram leads blindly privacy act the safeguards rule the safeguards rule requires financial institutes such as a dealer to have a security plan to protect the confidentiality and integrity of the personal consumer information so we have to be able to protect our customers information you know whether it's stored on paper or maybe on a computer hard drive so you know if you have uh paper docs or loan applications of previous customers you want to make sure they're stored in some type of lockable type of paper storage like a lockable file cabinet also i want you to be aware any computer used during a loan application interview must have the latest antivirus protection like maybe that's going to be mcafee or norton or windows defender because this law also wants to hopefully prohibit a hacker from coming across the internet and you know getting onto your records and basically on your dealership and stealing your customers financial information so we have to also do everything in our power to protect our customers digital footprint and that includes having antivirus software on any computer that you might be using during an online loan application the pre-texting provision of the grammley's bliley privacy expert uh prohibits pre-texting the use of false pretenses including fraudulent statements or some type of impersonation to obtain a customer's personal financial information such as bank balances okay so the price fee the privacy notice i want to talk to you about a very important part of every motor vehicle transaction that involves financing and that's what we call your privacy notice and this law was created under the gremlins bloody privacy act but it is also enforced by the federal trade commission that's the ftc and we're definitely going to talk about them much more extensively here in a later part of the course but the federal trade commission has developed additional guidelines to help dealers comply with the gremlins blindly privacy act and the privacy rule and these guidelines show the privacy rule applies to specific situations that auto dealers may face so you know the privacy rule applies to car dealers who extend credit to someone for example through maybe a retail uh contract in connection with the purchase of a vehicle okay so that's something you want to be aware of or maybe if you're providing financial advice so maybe you've got two different third-party lenders and you're trying to advise the customer on the correct lender to use well that's providing uh financial advice or counseling to a customer so if you engage in these activities which any dealer that basically is helping or assisting with financing is going to be engaging these activities uh then the personal information that you collect must be covered by the privacy rules so examples of personal information might include someone's name their address phone number or other information that can be used to identify them in connection with the potential financing or leasing of a vehicle even if that person does not fill out a formal application and i want to repeat that the privacy rule applies when a dealer obtains a name address or even a phone number though the customer has not filled out any type of formal application such as a vehicle loan application the privacy rule does not apply to a dealer if a person buys a car with cash or arranges financing on their own through maybe their own personal bank or something like that they're just bringing in a check so the privacy rule does not apply for us if we're selling a vehicle with cash or if the customer has brought in say for example their own cashier's check uh from their own bank but if we are assisting a customer and getting a loan or for a buy here pay here dealer then it is definitely imperative that we have that privacy notice okay the next we need to determine when a dealer is required to provide that privacy notice you do not need to give a privacy notice of someone who simply expresses an interest in buying a car from you or just basically asks general questions about financing or leasing however if a person gives you personal information in connection with a potential transaction even without completing a formal application so for example if they give you personal information to get a quote on a financial package then the privacy disclosure is required if you just want to run a real quick credit report on them or something like that you have to have that privacy notice but you will need to determine whether or not the person is a consumer or a customer and there is a big difference between the two and i'll try to explain that a person becomes a consumer when he or she gives you personal information in the context of possibly financing or leasing a vehicle from you such as maybe just running that quick credit check you would need to give them a privacy notice say for example if you intend to disclose their personal information to that credit bureau now someone enters into a contract with you to buy a car and you extend credit or arrange for a third party lender to extend the credit then they become a customer and in the leasing context once someone enters in a lease agreement with you they become your customer as well whether leasing or arranging credit you must give them a privacy notice no later than at the time of the signing of that written retail contract or the lease agreement if you even if you did not disclose their personal information to others and by the way if you lease cars and the initial term of the lease is at least 90 days then the privacy rule applies to you as well so do please keep that in mind third party financing when you're offering third party lending you must give the customer a privacy notice no later than when the customer signs the contract even if you intend to assign that contract to that third party so once that loan is assigned to your third party lender your customer becomes the third party lender customer as well and at that time they would also need to comply with the privacy laws that we're discussing here as well when a dealer enters into a retail installment contract with a person to finance the purchase of a vehicle the dealer is the creditor on the contractor uh such as a buy here pay here institute a privacy notice must be provided as well so when you do not assign the contract the person remains your customer and you will need to give them an initial privacy notice and then also an annual notice for as long as the customer relationship lasts so so if you are financing vehicles you're also required to give the annual notice to that customer and uh hopefully your buy here pay your attorney will assist you on that or if you're using some really state of the art third third-party finance software that also helps you with buy here pay here they'll be able to assist you with that as well so so where do you find a fillable privacy notice well if you want you can type the entire url that you see here on the screen but the easiest way is to go to your favorite search engine and we'll just use google for this scenario and we're just going to type in ftc sample fillable privacy note so now that's a long word there but we're going to type in ftc sample fillable privacy notice and here you see i have done that and you're going to see with google there's ftc sample fillable privacy notice entered in the search box and you're going to click on the link at the very top of the page that you see right here you're then going to land on that ftc online form builder page and you will need to scroll down and then click on the link you see that says online form builder so you're just going to jump down there and click on that link that says online form builder and for this scenario let's say we're using form 2 as an example right here so uh let's just say that just as an example we're going to scroll down and use form 2 and here you see a fillable ftc privacy notice and let's take a quick look at this form first make sure and enter your dealership name at the very top of the form there okay you want to make sure that you have your dealership name there then you want to enter any type of information that you're collecting in the what box such as birthday name address phone number and email address in the how box you can enter your customer's name and then in the light blue box you're going to want to enter to whom you may share information and if the customer can limit the sharing then down towards the bottom you can enter your phone number and website for further questions or to limit specific sharing of that information then on the second page as you see here be sure to enter your dealership name again the information you might be sharing again like the customer's name and email or maybe their social security number and any additional information that we're going to cover uh several more federal trade commission guidelines later on in your dealer course but remember basically the only time you do not provide a privacy notice is when you sold a vehicle for cash and no financing was involved or if say for example the customer brings in their own payment from their own bank but what we are going to do is provide that privacy notice on any other transaction so you definitely want to make sure that you are complying with that law and hopefully those uh links to you there are helpful and will help you maintain compliance under the gram leads bliley privacy acts privacy notice so there's some big fines for non-compliance there so you definitely want to make sure that you are complying with not only those state finance laws that come out of atlanta but also all the finance laws that come out of washington so we've now completed unit six and i want to remind you you can review any of these training videos that you've completed at georgiadealer.com once again that is georgiadealer.com and just click on the dealer video link at the very top of the page for a full unit review let's move on to the next unit