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All states · Filled 2026-09-17

District of Columbia mortgage advertising rules

Adline flags phrases that match cited rules. It does not certify that District of Columbia marketing is compliant. We flag and cite. We never certify. This is not legal advice. Whether a rule reaches you depends on your license type. Federal Reg Z and Reg N still apply.

Scanner status: Index only. The engine cites Washington, Arizona, and Idaho only. This page is an index of retrieved text. The engine does not emit a District of Columbia citation.

Regulating agency

District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking

Last verified 2026-09-17.

District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking (DISB). Note a drafting artifact: the D.C. Code text still reads "Superintendent [Commissioner]" throughout ch. 11. the bracketed substitution reflects the renaming of the office and appears in the official code as published. Cite it as it appears.

NMLS and license display: Conjunctive and disjunctive elements.

Governing statute and administrative code

Last verified 2026-09-17.

  • [STATUTE] D.C. Code tit. 26, ch. 11. Mortgage Lenders and Brokers (§§ 26-1101 through 26-1121). Enacted Sept. 9, 1996, D.C. Law 11-155; substantially amended July 18, 2009 by D.C. Law 18-38 to add mortgage loan originators and loan officers.
  • [REGULATION] 26 DCMR, Subtitle 26-C, ch. 26-C11. "Mortgage Lenders, Mortgage Brokers and Mortgage Loan Originators." Sections confirmed to exist include 26-C1102 (General Licensing Requirements), 26-C1111 (Renewal of License), 26-C1116 (Mortgage Loan Application and Approval Process), 26-C1117 (Written Commitments, Financing Agreements, and Lock-In Agreements), 26-C1120 (Recordkeeping), and 26-C1199 (Definitions).
  • Second regime: the District separately licenses money lenders under D.C. Code tit. 26, ch. 9. NOT VERIFIED. not retrieved, no claim made.

License and NMLS ID display

None found

Statute. Guidance is not law.

Last verified 2026-09-17.

A name-restriction requirement exists; there is NO NMLS unique-identifier requirement in the statute.

"No mortgage lender, mortgage broker, mortgage loan originator, or loan officer required to be licensed under this chapter shall use, or cause to be published, any advertisement which: … (2) Identifies the mortgage lender, mortgage broker, mortgage loan originator, or loan officer by any name other than the name set forth on the license issued by the Superintendent [Commissioner]." — D.C. Code §26-1116(2) [STATUTE]

Structure: this is a prohibition on using a non-license name, not an affirmative duty to display a name or number. Read strictly, an ad that names no one violates nothing under (2). though it would likely fail §26-1116(1) and federal Reg N. There is no requirement anywhere in D.C. Code ch. 11 that an NMLS unique identifier appear in advertising.

Conjunctive/disjunctive: N/A. single negative requirement. Combined with §26-1116(1) (below), the section imposes two independent prohibitions, either of which is sufficient for a violation (i.e., the two paragraphs operate disjunctively as violation triggers: an ad violates §26-1116 if it does (1) or (2)).

NOT VERIFIED. whether 26 DCMR ch. 26-C11 adds an NMLS-ID-in-advertising requirement. Could not retrieve the chapter's section index: the DCMR republisher (dcrules.elaws.us) returned HTTP 503 on four attempts and its robots.txt fetch failed, and Cornell LII returned no DC regulation chapter listing. From section titles surfaced in search results, no section titled "Advertising" appeared, but Did not see a complete index and cannot rule one out. This is the most important open item for DC.

Prohibited claims

Verified

Statute. Guidance is not law.

Last verified 2026-09-17.

"No mortgage lender, mortgage broker, mortgage loan originator, or loan officer required to be licensed under this chapter shall use, or cause to be published, any advertisement which: (1) Contains any false, misleading, or deceptive statement or representation; or (2) [non-license name]" — D.C. Code §26-1116 [STATUTE] (section titled "Advertising")

Attaches to: any false, misleading, or deceptive statement in any advertisement. Not limited to rates or fees. Unlike Tennessee and West Virginia, it binds only persons required to be licensed. it does not reach "any person."

Institutional impersonation is a separate section, aimed at trade names rather than ad copy:

"A mortgage lender, mortgage broker, mortgage loan originator, or loan officer may not do business under any trade name that misrepresents or tends to misrepresent that the mortgage lender is: (1) A bank, trust company, or savings bank; (2) A savings and loan association; (3) A credit union; or (4) An insurance company." — D.C. Code §26-1120 [STATUTE] ("Limitation on name of mortgage business")

Note the "or tends to misrepresent" standard. no intent or actual deception required, and the enumerated list is closed (four institution types). There is no government-agency item in the §26-1120 list, and no government look-alike advertising prohibition of the Washington/Wisconsin/Virginia type was found in ch. 11.

No express ban on "lowest," "best," "cheapest," "guaranteed," "pre-approved," "free," or "no cost" was found in D.C. Code ch. 11.

"Evasive business tactics". D.C. Code §26-1117 exists under that title and may be relevant to structured-around-the-rules marketing. NOT VERIFIED. not retrieved.

Rate advertising

Not yet verified

Last verified 2026-09-17.

NOT VERIFIED. no state-specific rate-advertising requirement found in D.C. Code ch. 11. There is no "actually available," APR-prominence, or rate-sheet provision in §26-1116 or §26-1113 (Required loan disclosures, not retrieved). Reg Z §1026.24 and Reg N govern. 26 DCMR ch. 26-C11 may contain more. see the §3 caveat.

Ad filing, prior approval, retention

Verified

Statute. Guidance is not law.

Last verified 2026-09-17.

  • No filing or prior-approval requirement found.
  • No advertising-specific retention requirement found in the statute. The general records provision keys to loans, not advertising:

> "(b) Each mortgage lender required to be licensed under this chapter shall retain for at least 3 years after final payment is made on any mortgage loan or after the mortgage loan is sold, whichever first occurs, copies of the note, settlement statement, truth-in-lending disclosure, and such other papers or records relating to the loan as may be required by rule or regulation." > "(d) Each independent contractor or mortgage broker required to be licensed under this chapter shall retain for at least 3 years after a mortgage loan is made the original contract for his or her compensation, a copy of the settlement statement, an account of fees received in connection with the loan, and such other papers or records as may be required by rule or regulation." >. D.C. Code §26-1109(b), (d) [STATUTE]

  • Off-site storage carries a longer period: with the Commissioner's approval, a licensee need not keep books at its place of business if it is a federally approved seller-servicer, or if it "(A) Makes the books and records available to the [Commissioner] at the licensee's place of business within 5 business days of the [Commissioner's] official request; and (B) Retains the records for at least 60 months in a storage facility disclosed to the [Commissioner].". §26-1109(c). Electing off-site storage therefore extends the retention obligation from 36 to 60 months.
  • NOT VERIFIED: 26 DCMR §26-C1120 is titled "Recordkeeping" and may add an advertising-retention rule. Not retrieved.

Social media and character-limited media

Not yet verified

Last verified 2026-09-17.

NOT VERIFIED. none found in the statute. No social media, texting, electronic-advertising, or abbreviated-disclosure provision appears in D.C. Code ch. 11. The statute dates from 1996 and its advertising section was last amended in 2009; it predates platform advertising. The DCMR chapter was not retrievable and may address it.

Anything unusual

Last verified 2026-09-17.

  • The 60-month trap in §26-1109(c). Moving records off-site to a disclosed storage facility is administratively convenient but raises the retention floor from 3 years to 5 years and imposes a 5-business-day production deadline. A lender that centralizes DC records in a national archive has, by that act, opted into the longer period. This is the kind of provision that gets missed because it sits in a subsection about *where* records are kept, not *how long*.
  • "Tends to misrepresent" in §26-1120 is a low bar with no intent element, applied to a closed list of four institution types. Brand names containing "Bank," "Savings," "Trust," "Credit Union," or "Assurance/Insurance" need DC-specific review even where they pass elsewhere.
  • "Superintendent [Commissioner]" appears in bracketed form throughout the official code. Quote it as published; do not silently normalize it, or the quote will not match the source on audit.
  • §26-1116 binds only licensees and persons required to be licensed. narrower than Tennessee's and West Virginia's "any person," so DC's advertising section does not by itself reach unlicensed lead generators.
  • Vicarious liability is explicit in the disciplinary section: grounds exist where "the licensee or any owner, director, officer, member, partner, stockholder, employee, or agent of the licensee, while acting on behalf of the licensee" commits the conduct. §26-1118(a). Agency-placed advertising is the licensee's exposure.

Penalties

Verified

Statute. Guidance is not law.

Last verified 2026-09-17.

"(b)(1) The Commissioner may enforce the provisions of this section or any rules and regulations adopted hereunder, by issuing an order against any licensee or person required to be licensed… The Commissioner may issue an order requiring a licensee or any person engaging in any activity or business within the scope of this chapter to show cause as to the reasons enforcement action should not be taken… (2) If a violator fails to comply with an order issued under paragraph (1) of this subsection, the [Commissioner] may impose a civil penalty of up to $25,000 for each violation from which the violator failed to cease and desist or for which the violator failed to take affirmative action to correct." — D.C. Code §26-1118(b) [STATUTE]

Read the trigger carefully. The $25,000 figure is not a first-instance penalty for an advertising violation. It attaches to failure to comply with an order already issued. The first-instance remedy under §26-1118(a) is suspension or revocation of the license, on any of fourteen enumerated grounds including "(4) Violates any provision of this chapter, any rule or regulation adopted under it, or any other law regulating mortgage loan lending in the District." A matrix cell reading "DC: $25,000 per violation" without that qualification is misleading.

§26-1118(c) additionally allows referral to the Corporation Counsel for Superior Court enforcement, with "damages and such other relief allowed by law, including restitution."

Sources

Last verified 2026-09-17. Official means the legislature, the official administrative-code publisher, or the regulator. Reproduction is not the official publisher.