IBA Compliance Connection

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If a bank advertises in Spanish, does it have to provide loan documents in Spanish?

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No, we do not believe that advertising in Spanish obligates a bank to provide loan documents in Spanish.

However, you should be aware of two statutory notice requirements in Illinois relating to residential mortgage foreclosures. One requirement applies to all foreclosure filings, and one requirement applies to foreclosures of residential rental properties located in the City of Chicago, which requires a statutory notice in several languages, including Spanish, to renters of those properties.

When you file a foreclosure action against a residential mortgage loan customer in Illinois, you must attach a Homeowner Notice to the foreclosure summons that is in both English and Spanish. In addition, the City of Chicago requires any purchaser of residential rental property in a foreclosure sale (including a mortgagee who is the credit bidder) to provide a tenant’s rights notice in English, Spanish, Polish, and Chinese.

We also note that the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act imposes disclosure requirements for the use of an interpreter when a transaction or negotiations over a transaction are conducted in a language other than English.

Other than those requirements, we are not aware of any law that would require you to provide Spanish disclosures when offering products and services to Spanish-speaking customers.

For citations related to our guidance, please see below:

  • Illinois Mortgage Foreclosure Law ­735 ILCS 5/15-1504.5 (English and Spanish notices available here)

  • Chicago Municipal Code § 5-14-040 (English, Spanish, Polish, and Chinese notices available here)

  • Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, 815 ILCS 505/2N (use of interpreter in non-English language transaction)

  • Regulation Z, 12 CFR 1026.27 and Official Interpretations, 12 CFR 1026, Paragraph 27, Comment 1 (“If a creditor provides account-opening disclosures in a language other than English, subsequent disclosures need not be in that other language. For example, if the creditor gave Spanish-language account-opening disclosures, periodic statements and change-in-terms notices may be made in English”) (emphasis added)