Do mortgage brokers have to tell customers calls are recorded?

Where your state's law requires consent to record a call, yes: you have to ask before you record. The FTC says that under the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), a caller may request permission before recording, and the part of the call before recording starts is limited to that request. Because state recording laws differ, the safest habit for a brokerage is to ask on every call and log the answer.

What does the TSR say about asking permission to record?

The FTC's guidance on complying with the TSR covers this directly. Where state law requires recording consent, the caller may request permission first.

The pre-recording portion of the call is limited to that permission request. You cannot pitch a rate, quote terms, or ask for financial details before the recording starts.

There is one more rule to build into your script. If identifying your company or explaining the purpose of the call is necessary to get permission, you must repeat that information after recording begins.

A script that follows this pattern looks like this:

1. Say your name and company, and briefly say why you are calling.
2. Ask: "May I record this call?"
3. Wait for a clear yes. If you hear no, do not record.
4. Start recording.
5. Repeat your name, company and the purpose of the call on the recording.

Do two-party and one-party consent states change the answer?

Yes, the state matters. Some states let a call be recorded when one participant consents. Others require everyone on the call to agree. Definitions, exceptions and wording vary from state to state, so this article does not give a state-by-state list. Have counsel confirm the rule for each state where you originate loans.

A one-party rule generally answers only whether one participant's consent is enough under that state's law. It does not settle what happens when the borrower, your loan officer or your recording system sits in another state.

It also does not remove federal telemarketing rules, prerecorded-voice rules, privacy obligations or contract terms. Being in a one-party state does not by itself make recording a borrower without asking a safe default.

Many brokerages with borrowers in several states adopt one policy: ask on every call, whatever the state. That is a business choice, not a statement of what each state requires. It is simple to train and simple to audit.

When does the TSR actually require a recording?

Only in a narrow case. The FTC says the TSR requires the entire telemarketing transaction to be audio-recorded in the specific situation involving pre-acquired account information and a free-to-pay conversion offer. In that situation the recording must capture the material terms and the context and manner of the offer.

Check whether any offer your team makes could fit that description before assuming the rule does not touch you. If it does not fit, the TSR does not make recording mandatory for the call.

The TSR also has a consent-records rule. When TSR consent is verbally requested and no other TSR provision requires a recording, a complete consent record includes recordings of both the request and the consent provided. It must also show the purpose of consent. The FTC's final rule materials set this out.

Does the TSR apply to your mortgage calls?

The FTC describes the rule as prohibiting deceptive or abusive telemarketing and requiring specified disclosures and recordkeeping, in its TSR update. Whether a given call is covered depends on the facts of the call, such as who you are calling and why. Ask counsel to classify your outbound call types.

Where it applies, the TSR does these things:

• Requires specific material disclosures.
• Prohibits misrepresentations.
• Limits calling times.
• Restricts calls to people who asked not to be called.
• Imposes payment restrictions for certain sales.

Two numbers belong in your dialer settings. The rule text generally restricts outbound telemarketing calls before 8:00 a.m. or after 9:00 p.m. in the consumer's time zone. It also restricts calls to numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, subject to stated exceptions.

A borrower in Phoenix and a lead in New York need different cutoffs in your dialer, so set call windows by the consumer's time zone, not yours.

Do automated IVR disclosures create their own rules?

They can. Under the TSR, outbound telemarketing calls delivering prerecorded messages generally require the recipient's prior signed written agreement. Separately, 47 U.S.C. § 227 restricts calls using an artificial or prerecorded voice to residential lines without prior express consent, subject to statutory exceptions.

Those rules concern outbound calls that deliver a prerecorded message. A recorded "this call may be recorded" greeting is a prerecorded message. Whether your particular greeting, on your particular call type, triggers these rules depends on the facts. Have counsel review the call flow before you play any automated message on outbound dials.

The safer design for outbound calls is a live person who asks for permission, as in the script above. The automated message is better suited to calls the borrower places to you, and counsel should still sign off.

How long do you have to keep mortgage records?

The retention periods we can cite attach to specific records, not to call recordings as a category.

Record	Period	Source
Regulation Z evidence of compliance, when a broker provides the Loan Estimate	3 years	CFPB TILA-RESPA guide
Closing Disclosure copies and related documents	5 years after consummation	CFPB TILA-RESPA guide

Notice what these do and do not say. The three-year period concerns evidence of compliance with specified Regulation Z requirements. The five-year period concerns Closing Disclosures and related documents. Neither is a rule that every call recording be kept for a set number of years.

Decide your recording retention period with counsel, and make sure it is at least as long as any record it supports. If a recording is evidence of how you handled a Loan Estimate, treat it as part of that file.

How do you log recording consent in your CRM?

This article does not give menu-by-menu steps for any particular vendor's phone or IVR tools, because those screens change. Ask your CRM vendor to confirm, in writing, what its calling tools can record, play and log. The structure below is vendor-neutral and is built on the TSR consent-record fact above. For background, see what a CRM does.

Create these fields on the contact or loan record. The names are suggestions:

• Recording consent status: Yes, No, or Not asked.
• Consent date and time: stamped automatically.
• Consent purpose: a short text, for example "record call for quality and compliance."
• Consent recording link: a link to the audio containing both the request and the answer.
• Borrower state and time zone: used for call windows and for choosing the right script.
• Loan officer: who made the call.

Then set up the workflow:

1. Make "Recording consent status" a required field before a call can be logged as complete.
2. Default it to "Not asked," so a blank is never read as a yes.
3. Add a task that fires when the status is "No," telling the loan officer to turn recording off and take notes instead.
4. Run a monthly report of calls where the status is "Not asked" and a recording exists. Review each one.
5. Keep the retention date on the record, tied to the longest period that applies.

If you are still choosing a system, see how we pick CRMs and all 18 CRMs compared. Lenders and brokers who also advise on investments may want to compare approaches in CRM for financial advisors.

What happens if you record without proper consent?

No single fine applies to this. Penalties depend on which federal or state statute is involved, the type of violation, who brings the claim, the damages and how regulators choose to enforce.

Your practical protection is the paper trail. A recording of the request and the consent, plus the consent fields above, lets you show what the borrower agreed to and why.

A quick checklist before you turn recording on

• Counsel has confirmed the rule for every state where your borrowers and staff are located.
• Your script asks permission first and says nothing else before the recording starts.
• Your script repeats your company and the call's purpose after recording begins.
• Dialer hours stop at 9:00 p.m. and start at 8:00 a.m. in the consumer's time zone.
• Do Not Call lists are scrubbed against the National Do Not Call Registry, subject to stated exceptions.
• Counsel has reviewed any prerecorded or IVR message before it plays on outbound calls.
• Retention is set to cover the 3-year and 5-year periods that apply to your files.

These rules may change, so confirm them again as of October 2026 before you roll anything out.