CDLP® Certification: Become the Loan Officer Family Law Attorneys Refer by Name
For licensed mortgage loan originators
You can already do a loan for a divorced client. So can every other originator in town. When “I can do the loan” is your whole pitch, you wait at closing for business that arrives already broken, because the settlement was drafted without financing in mind.
The CDLP® moves you to intake, onto the divorce team, while the client, the money and the deal are still being shaped. It is the practice attorneys, mediators and financial professionals refer by name, and it does not depend on interest rates or real estate referrals.
“
It doesn't teach you what to do. It teaches you how to think.
And in divorce, how you think is what determines whether the family across the table is better off for having you there.
Jody Bruns • Founder, Divorce Lending Association
Watch the three-minute overview
The CDLP® is not just another training program.
What the credential actually builds
You think you are adding a niche. You are building a five-layer practice.
Most originators arrive here doing the math on referred refinances. The calculator below will show you that math, and it is the smallest version of this practice. A lender takes the application as it stands. A CDLP® reads the whole case.
1
The simple inquiry
Can I keep the house? Will support count? A few answers, early, while the decisions are still open. The only layer most loan officers ever see.
2
The scenario analysis
The refinance, the buyout and the support terms tested against real lending rules before anyone signs, instead of discovered in underwriting after the decree is final.
The line where lending ends. Most originators never cross it.
3
The comprehensive plan
The whole housing picture, delivered as the Divorce Mortgage Planning Report™ the attorney builds the settlement around. A paid engagement, and the settlement it shapes is where your closings come from.
4
The neutral in the room
Retained by both spouses, or appointed by a court, to answer the housing questions for both households at once, with no loan to either side and nothing to gain from who keeps what.
A second role for a CDLP®, not a replacement: any CDLP® can earn the Certified Divorce Housing Neutral™ (CDHN™) designation, and CORE members run that practice through the DLA. About the designation
5
The expert on the stand
When settlement feasibility is contested, the court hears from the professional who can read the case. No rate sheet gets you there.
Here is the moment it clicks. The thinking is the product. The loans are what it wins.
Where an originator ends the file because the qualifying income disappeared, a CDLP® finds where else in the divorce the income lives: a retirement account, a property settlement note, a divided estate. Where an originator takes the signed settlement at face value, a CDLP® reads the draft before it is signed and changes it while it still can be changed. That is a closing that was dead, and the attorney's next referral.
The deeper layers are where the production comes from, and the advisory fees along the way are earned on top of commission, not instead of it. In a neutral engagement the fee is the whole of it, because the neutral never does the loan. It does not teach you what to do. It teaches you how to think.
Of licensed mortgage originators have any divorce training
40%
Of divorcing adults are age 50+ (peak home equity)
Divorce counts: CDC/NCHS National Vital Statistics System, 2023 (45 reporting states and D.C.; CA, HI, IN, MN and NM do not report, so the true U.S. total is higher). Real-property share: estimate originating with the Financial Divorce Association (2012), consistent with what Certified Divorce Lending Professionals report from their work with family law attorneys; no federal agency measures it.
Your Market's Numbers
See what a CDLP® practice could add in your market.
Enter your zip code and the calculator sizes your market from the real professional counts in your county: your revenue potential, the referral doors to knock on, and how many CDLP® CORE seats your market holds.
Example · Dallas County, TX
Your added annual revenue
Year one$83,943
→
At maturity$167,886
Loan production plus fee-based advisory revenue, from 35 divorce cases referred a year at maturity.
This market has room for 16 active CDLP® CORE practices. Among the members holding those seats, every seat is equal and consumer leads rotate evenly.
The model is deliberately conservative: it assumes 10 working relationships. CDLP® professionals actively working divorce cases hold about 15.
Takes about a minute. Every assumption is shown and adjustable.
Your market
Looking up your county…
Your practice
Deliberately conservative: the model assumes 10 working relationships. CDLP® professionals actively working divorce cases hold about 15, which is also what sets your market’s seat count. What you see here is the floor.
Running a branch? Model your team
Branch totals count loan production only. Fee based advisory revenue is earned individually by each certified originator under a DLA administered engagement, so it appears as a separate per-originator line, never in branch totals.
Loan economics
Fee based advisory revenue you earn per case as a CDLP®, separate from your loan commission, whether or not you also do the loan. Valid fees range from $1,295 to $2,500. Set to 0 to exclude advisory revenue and see the loan origination effect alone.
Referral assumptions
Referral source
How many in your county
Share of your relationships
Divorce cases per year
Non-divorce referrals per year
Family law attorneys
—
CFP® professionals
—
CPAs, CDFAs and mediators
—
Counts come from the county audit and update with your zip. For scale: U.S. filings spread across the nation's family law attorneys average about a dozen divorce cases per attorney a year, roughly eight involving a home. As their go-to divorce lending expert the default assumes 6, roughly one every other month from an engaged attorney; set it to 4 for a more conservative read. Cases where the client arrives with a lender attached or needs no financing account for the rest. Attorneys refer mostly divorce work because that is their book. Financial professionals refer the reverse: the divorce case is how you meet them, and the rest of their clients is what keeps coming. Relationships follow the coached Power Ten mix in the “Share of your relationships” column, not the size of each group in your county. That is why a county with more planners than attorneys still puts half the book on attorneys.
A divorce often produces two closings: one spouse refinances or buys out the home, the other buys. 1.4 assumes you get both sides in 4 of 10 of your lending cases.
The registries count everyone. Not all of them refer: some attorneys practice other areas of family law, some professionals are semi retired or already committed elsewhere. The default assumes 40% are active and reachable. It is the same 40% behind the seat counts.
Your added annual revenue at maturity
$0
Referral professionals in your county
0
Your market has room for
0
Unlock with your free market report below to see your market’s seat count.
Relationships you hold
0
Added closed loans per year
0
Share of that volume that is not divorce
0%
Referrals the same relationships send you
Pays for itself in
–
This projection models 10 working relationships. Your market’s seat count assumes a full practice of 15. The numbers you are seeing are the floor.
Where the added volume comes from
Part of your free market report
Enter your email in the report box and this section opens instantly, no waiting on the email.
Divorce-driven transactions 0
Referred non-divorce transactions 0
Loan production revenue $0
Advisory revenue, fee based $0
Branch view • loan production only
$0
Added closed loans per year, branch0
Per certified originator0
Branch production not dependent on agent referrals0%
Program pays for itself in–
Which doors to knock on
Part of your free market report
Enter your email in the report box and this section opens instantly, no waiting on the email.
Referral source
In your county
Divorce
Non-divorce
Transactions per year at maturity. Your relationships follow the coached Power Ten mix, not your county’s mix. For each group: Divorce = relationships held × divorce cases each sends per year × the share where you do the loan × closed loans per lending case. Non-divorce = relationships held × non-divorce referrals each sends per year × the share of those that close. Every rate is visible and adjustable under “Referral assumptions.”
The numbers behind it
Part of your free market report
Enter your email in the report box and this section opens instantly, no waiting on the email.
Line
Year one
At maturity
Get your free Market Opportunity Report.
Enter your email and two things happen. The locked sections on this page open instantly: your seat count, where the volume comes from, the doors to knock on, and the full numbers behind your projection. And we email your county’s complete breakdown, the referral professionals to approach first, plus a link to book a 15-minute strategy call.
Limited seats per market, equal for all Certification is open to everyone, but CORE seats in each market area are not unlimited. Every market supports a fixed number of certified seats, set by its referral professional count: the number of CDLP® CORE practices the market can genuinely sustain. Every seat is equal: DivorceHousing consumer leads rotate evenly among the CORE members in your market, whether you were first in or last in. When a market’s seats fill, a waitlist opens, and a seat frees only when a member lets CORE lapse.
How these numbers are built: sources, assumptions and disclosures
How the market size is built. Your zip resolves to your county, and the referral professional counts shown are from the DLA county audit: family law attorney counts modeled from the American Bar Association 2025 National Lawyer Population Survey with a 4.1% family law share, CFP® professional counts from CFP Board 2025 state data, and a labeled allied-professional estimate (CPAs, CDFAs and mediators, 0.5 x attorneys; there is no national registry of divorce mediators, and many are also family law attorneys). County population is from the U.S. Census Bureau 2024 estimates. Divorce counts are estimated from county population and your state's divorce rate (CDC/NCHS 2023, recorded divorces and annulments; California, Hawaii, Indiana, Minnesota and New Mexico do not report to NCHS, so those five use the national average). Connecticut figures are DLA estimates pending a registry rebuild. If your county cannot be resolved, a state level estimate from the same sources is used and you can set the population you draw from directly.
What is an assumption. Everything under “Referral assumptions” is a planning estimate you can change, not published data. Defaults are deliberately conservative and model ten working relationships per originator, the Power Ten starting book rather than the thirty a coached practice holds. The attorney referral default of six a year is roughly one every other month from an engaged attorney. Two ceilings apply: what you can hold, and the share of counted professionals who are realistic referral sources, set at 40% (not every listed attorney actively works divorce cases, and some professionals are semi retired or already committed elsewhere). In a small county the second one binds first. The same ceilings are what set a market’s certified seat count: each certified originator works a limited number of relationships, so each market area supports a limited number of seats. Seat counts shown apply 40% realistic coverage and fifteen actively worked relationships per certified professional to your market area’s professional count. Year one is discounted for ramp. Nothing here is a promise of production.
What the payback figures cover. Your individual figure compares first year investment, certification plus twelve months of CORE membership ($5,243 at current pricing), to your modeled revenue per case. The branch figure covers the full branch program, certification for the team and a full first year of CORE for every certified originator, all in, against branch loan production only.
Advisory revenue. Loan production and fee based advisory revenue are illustrative and depend on your commission and fee model. Advisory services are delivered under a DLA administered engagement, separate from origination. Branch totals never include advisory revenue; it is earned individually by each certified originator.
Notes on geography. Some zip codes are post office boxes with no residential area and will not resolve; try a nearby zip. The District of Columbia shows an unusually high attorney count relative to population because of federal practice. Estimates are for illustration; actual results vary by market, loan type, and business activity. CDLP® and Certified Divorce Lending Professional® are marks of the Divorce Lending Association.
That number is the floor, not the ceiling
Divorce is the door. Your whole pipeline is on the other side.
That figure counts divorce loans and advisory fees only. It doesn't count the everyday purchase, refinance, and referral business that attorneys, mediators, real estate agents, financial advisors, CPAs, and insurance agents send you once you're their trusted CDLP®. Become the credentialed specialist in your market and you own a referral channel your competitors can't even see.
What you actually learn
One national standard. Fifty state-specific frameworks.
Divorce mortgage planning is interpretation work, not underwriting. You learn to read a settlement agreement, understand the legal and tax reasoning behind it, and spot where it will hold or break, under the national standard and the divorce laws that differ in every state.
50State modules
1National standard
Family Law Foundations
How settlements are built, what courts can order, and where housing terms most often go wrong.
Property and Title
Dividing the home, transferring title, and protecting both spouses on the existing loan.
Tax Considerations
The tax rules that shape how a settlement is structured, and the traps to catch before it is signed.
Retirement and Military Assets
How divided retirement accounts and military retired pay can become income the housing plan relies on.
Income, Debt, and Credit
What the support terms, the assigned debts and credit after divorce mean for each spouse's housing plan.
The Expert Role
Presenting your analysis clearly and credibly to attorneys, mediators and the court.
The question every lesson answers
How do we carry out the legal intent of the settlement on the mortgage side?
The curriculum stays current through the Alignment Series and the CDLP® Mastery Series, and is applied state by state through the 50-State Playbook. That is why attorneys, mediators and financial professionals refer to CDLPs by name.
Two Ways to Earn Your CDLP®
Both formats lead to the same credential and the same certification exam. Choose the one that fits your calendar.
Who can enroll: mortgage loan originators with an active license.
Self-Paced eLearning
Live Virtual Certification
Format
20 hours of on-demand video and reading
Instructor-led online sessions
Time to certify
At your pace; most members finish in 4 to 6 weeks
One week
Live coaching
Monthly group coaching calls after certification
Live discussion in the cohort, plus monthly group calls
Best for
Busy producers who want flexibility
Learners who thrive on real-time discussion
Start
Enroll anytime and start immediately
Next live training: January 2027, 12:00 to 4:00 PM ET
Inside CORE Membership
The CDLP® is your credential. CORE is the platform you run your practice on.
CORE is three things: the report you hand the attorney, a compliant way to charge for the work, and clients who come looking for you, plus the platform for a second role as a Certified Divorce Housing Neutral™.
Proprietary CDLP® Software
The Divorce Mortgage Planning Report™
Knowledge earns you a seat at the table. The DMPR™ is what you put on the table.
It is the proprietary software, built exclusively for CDLPs, that turns your analysis into a professional, client-ready report the entire divorce team can trust. You are no longer the loan officer explaining something verbally in a meeting. You are the professional who arrived with the document.
Models the settlement scenarios side by side, powered by Mortgage Capacity Mapping™.
Translates mortgage reality into language attorneys, mediators, and clients trust, in an executive summary written for the room, not for underwriting.
Client-ready and branded to you. Generate one per case.
Included with CORE Membership, along with the training on how to use it.
Explore the DMPRClient and party inputs on the left. The branded, client-ready report on the right.
Why it wins the referral: the attorney does not need another opinion about the mortgage. They need something they can put in the file, hand to the other side, and rely on while the agreement is still being written. That is the report.
The Hybrid Business Model
Get paid for what you already do.
On CORE you offer two separate services as one professional: fee-based Divorce Mortgage Planning advisory, and origination when the client is ready to finance. The two stay separate in role, documentation and compensation, and the DLA administers every advisory engagement for you: standardized documents, disclosures, DocuSign delivery, payment processing and E&O coverage for advisory fees.
Advisory arm
Divorce Mortgage Planning
Fee-based advisory work for the divorce
Delivered under a DLA-administered engagement
Produces the Divorce Mortgage Planning Report™
No application, no loan terms, no product steering
Origination arm
Mortgage Loan Production
Standard commission-compensated origination
Governed by TILA/Reg Z, RESPA, and the LO Comp Rule
Begins only when the client is ready to finance
A separate engagement with separate disclosures
No cross-subsidy with the advisory fee
Rate and product are commodities. Your knowledge is not. The Divorce Mortgage Planning Report™ is the deliverable that earns the fee.
The lead source
Clients who come looking for you.
DivorceHousing.com is the association's consumer platform, built for divorcing homeowners deciding what to do with the house. Requests for help route to the local CDLP®, with active CORE members first in line and priority placement in the national directory. CORE seats are capped by market area, and among the members holding them, every seat rotates equally.
1A divorcing homeowner searches for help with the house
→
2Finds DivorceHousing.com and requests professional help
→
3Routed to the local CDLP®, CORE members first
Attorneys refer. The platform refers. Both channels feed the same practice.
Serve both spouses as a Certified Divorce Housing Neutral™.
Any CDLP® can go on to earn the Certified Divorce Housing Neutral™ (CDHN™) designation, and CORE is where that practice runs: the DMPR Neutral Edition, the engagement letters and court forms, fee administration through the DLA, and the DLA’s insurance. A housing neutral is engaged by both spouses together, or appointed by a court, to answer the housing question for both households at once: who can keep the home, who can carry it, and where the other spouse will live. In that matter the neutral does no loan for either spouse, and the neutral fee is the whole of the pay.
It is a second role, not a replacement. You remain a CDLP® and keep serving in that role on your other cases, and you take a seat that collaborative teams, mediators and courts have been missing: the neutral for the house.
CORE-only training that goes past certification: the CDLP® Mastery Series with a new module every 14 days, the advisory practice playbook, and ongoing tax and legislative updates.
The CORE Marketing Hub
Done-for-you attorney outreach, automated marketing templates, and connected HubSpot tools you can deploy from day one, so referral development keeps running on the weeks you are too busy to do it.
What changes when you add CORE
Both paths earn you the CDLP® credential and the same curriculum. CORE is what you run the practice on afterward.
CDLP® Certification
CDLP® + CORE
The CDLP® credentialCurriculum, exam, directory listing, group coaching
✓
✓
Commission-based loan productionOrigination the way you do it today
✓
✓
The DMPR™ softwareThe client-ready report you hand the attorney
✓
Fee-based advisory workAdministered by the DLA, with documents, disclosures and E&O
✓
Priority lead routingPriority placement in the national directory, plus your seat in the Divorce Housing Strategy rotation
✓
Mastery Series and advanced libraryNew advanced module every 14 days
✓
Your CDHN™ practice, run through the DLAThe DMPR Neutral Edition, engagement letters, fee administration and insurance for neutral engagements
✓
The CORE Marketing HubAttorney outreach and connected HubSpot tools
✓
Ready to run your practice on CORE?
Choose CORE when you enroll and start building from day one, or add it any time after you certify. Either way, the whole platform is waiting.
$229 a month, which includes your DLA Membership, so there is no separate $497 annual fee while you are on CORE. Month to month, no annual commitment, and if you ever cancel you keep the credential.
How a CDLP® serves divorcing clients
Three ways to serve a divorcing client. One professional in every one.
The certification says what you are trained to do. The engagement letter says which role you are serving in on a case, and it is settled in writing before any work begins.
Every CDLP®
Advocate
For one spouse
Who engages you
One spouse, often on their attorney’s referral.
The work
You plan the housing side for that household while the agreement is still a draft, beside that spouse’s attorney.
How it builds your practice
Every case you plan well is the attorney’s reason to send you the next one.
CDLP® with CORE
Joint engagement
For both spouses, together
Who engages you
Both spouses, under one engagement letter they both sign.
The work
One analysis of both households, delivered to both spouses at the same time. You do not advocate for either one.
How it builds your practice
Mediators and cooperative couples who want one professional, and two households who already know your work.
Every CDHN™
Housing neutral
For the case
Who engages you
Both spouses together, or a court by appointment. The client is the case.
The work
Findings for both households against one standard, never a preference, on the DMPR Neutral Edition.
How it builds your practice
Income that does not wait on a loan, and a seat on collaborative teams, in mediation and under court appointment.
One rule keeps all three clean. The role does not change partway through a case. If you have advised one spouse, you cannot later serve as the neutral in that same case.
Any CDLP® can earn the Certified Divorce Housing Neutral™, a second role, not a replacement for the CDLP®. About the designation
From CDLP® members
What CDLP® members say.
Reviews CDLP® members have left for the Divorce Lending Association on Google.
Enroll Today
Choose Your CDLP® Path
Both paths earn the CDLP® credential and the same curriculum. The difference is the platform you run the practice on. You can certify now and add CORE later at the same price, so this is not a decision you can get wrong.
CDLP® Certification
$2,495 one-time
Then $497/year DLA membership, starting Year 2
The credential, and the community around it:
20-hour comprehensive curriculum (Self-Paced or Live Virtual)
Certification exam and the CDLP® credential
CDLP® Business Development Training
Group coaching calls with active members
Continuing education on tax and legislative updates
Your listing in the national CDLP® directory
The marketing collateral library
Who takes this path. Originators who want the credential first and will build the attorney relationships themselves. It does not include the DMPR software or the fee-based advisory model, and you can add both any time without paying more for having waited.
When I built the CDLP® program, I wasn't trying to teach loan officers a new product. I was trying to change how they see what a divorcing family is walking into. A settlement that holds and one that quietly falls apart almost never differ on the loan. They differ on whether someone at the table found the income in the marital estate, caught the language that reads fine in court and fails at the lender, and saw the ownership risk in the home. That is a way of thinking, not a checklist, and it is why this credential changes careers and protects families at the same time.
Jody Bruns
Founder & President, Divorce Lending Association
Before You Enroll
The questions loan officers actually ask.
Straight answers, including the ones about compliance, about whether there is still room in your market, and about which enrollment path to take. If a question you have is not here, ask it. Nothing on this page is a better answer than a ten-minute conversation.
Your market
Is there enough divorce volume in my market to justify this?
Roughly 673,000 divorces and annulments are recorded in the United States every year and about seven in ten involve real property. A house that has to be kept, bought out, refinanced, assumed or sold is real estate finance work by definition, and it happens in every county in the country.
But we are not going to guess at your number. Enter your zip code in the calculator further up this page and it counts the family-law attorneys and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals actually on the ground in your county, from public registry data, then models what relationships with them would produce at your loan size and your pricing. Every assumption in that model is printed on screen and adjustable. Set them to numbers you would defend and watch it recalculate.
Divorce counts: CDC/NCHS National Vital Statistics System, 2023 (45 reporting states and D.C.; California, Hawaii, Indiana, Minnesota and New Mexico do not report, so the true U.S. total is higher). Real-property share: estimate originating with the Financial Divorce Association (2012), consistent with what Certified Divorce Lending Professionals report from their work with family law attorneys; no federal agency measures it.
Is there still room in my market, or is it already taken?
Certification is open to every mortgage loan originator with an active license. We will never tell a licensed originator they cannot learn this work. What is limited is something narrower: the number of CDLP® CORE seats in each market area that receive inbound consumer routing from DivorceHousing.com.
That number is not a sales tactic. It is set by how many referral professionals your market area actually holds, it is published, and it is the same for everyone. CORE members receive priority placement in the national CDLP® directory, and inbound consumer routing reaches them ahead of non-CORE members. Among CORE seat holders themselves, every seat is equal: there is no premium position to buy and no way to pay your way up the rotation. When a market area fills, a waitlist opens. Seats free up only when a member lets CORE lapse.
What if I am not in a large metro?
Smaller markets are frequently the better opportunity, because the competition for attorney relationships is thinner and a single well-worked firm is a larger share of the local referral flow. They also hold fewer seats, for the same reason: capacity is set by the professional count.
The calculator will tell you plainly when your market, rather than your capacity, is the limiting factor. That is a real answer, and it is better than finding out later.
What the credential changes
I already work on divorce-related loans. What is different about the CDLP®?
The difference is not a product or a checklist. It is where you enter the case. A transactional loan officer receives a signed settlement and tries to finance it. A CDLP® reads the draft the way underwriting will read it months later, while it can still be changed.
That shift shows up in specifics: the line between alimony recapture and qualifying support income, how an equity buyout is structured so it does not create a taxable event, how mortgage capacity is mapped against a proposed settlement before anyone signs. Mortgage Capacity Mapping™ teaches all of it. But the mechanics are the evidence, not the point. The program does not teach you what to do. It teaches you how to think about the case.
What is the Divorce Mortgage Planning Report™, and who actually reads it?
It is the deliverable. Everything the certification teaches you to see in a draft settlement has to leave your desk in a form someone else can act on, and the DMPR™ is that form: property feasibility, income qualification structuring, debt allocation impact, and equity and cash flow solutions, set out so the drafting attorney can see what the mortgage will and will not support while the agreement can still be changed.
It has two readers. The attorney or mediator reads it as an analysis of what is financeable. The divorcing homeowner reads it as an explanation of what happens to the house. The software that produces it is included with CORE Membership, so you are not building these in a spreadsheet at eleven at night.
Not because you have a credential. They will take your call because you can do something for them they cannot do for themselves: catch a mortgage qualification problem before the settlement is signed, and keep them out of post-decree litigation over housing.
The credential is what makes that claim checkable. It is verifiable in a public national directory, which is what an attorney needs before putting their own client relationship behind your name. The Launch and Leverage system gives you the script, the cadence, and the CLE-approved presentation that puts you in front of attorney audiences.
Is the CDLP® recognized by family-law professionals?
Yes. The Divorce Lending Association has been advancing this discipline since 2011, the designation is governed rather than merely issued, with published standards, continuing education and oversight, and it is listed in a public national directory attorneys can check before they refer.
Many CDLP® professionals are also state-approved providers of continuing legal education for family-law attorneys in their jurisdictions, which is a very different conversation than asking for a meeting.
Certification or CORE
What is the difference between CDLP® Certification and CDLP® + CORE?
Both earn you the CDLP® credential. Both include the full 20-hour curriculum, the exam, the business development training, the group coaching calls, continuing education, your directory listing and the marketing collateral library. Nothing about the credential itself is held back.
CORE is the platform you run the practice on afterward. The shortest way to say it: certification teaches you the work, CORE gives you the tools to do it and to charge for it.
The two pieces that matter most are the Divorce Mortgage Planning Report™ software, which produces the client-ready document you hand an attorney, and the Hybrid Business Platform, which is the playbook for charging a fee for the planning work itself. Around those sit Mortgage Capacity Mapping™ training, the CDLP® 50-State Playbook, the Mastery Series with a new advanced module every 14 days, the CORE Marketing Hub for automated attorney outreach, your seat in the DivorceHousing.com inbound rotation, and quarterly strategy sessions with CDLP® leadership.
If you want the credential and intend to build the referral practice yourself from there, certification alone is a legitimate choice and always has been. If you want the deliverable, the fee model and the outreach engine from Day 1, that is CORE.
What does each path cost me, in year one and after?
Tuition is $2,495 one time either way. From there the two paths differ:
Certification
Certification + CORE
Year one
$2,495
$2,495 + $2,748
Every year after
$497
$2,748
Ongoing difference
$2,251 a year, or about $188 a month
The thing most people miss, and it changes the math: CORE includes your DLA Membership. You are never billed the $497 and the $229 at the same time. So the ongoing difference between the two paths is not $229 a month. It is $2,748 less $497, which is $2,251 a year, about $188 a month.
Whether that is worth it comes down to one question, and it is fair to ask us directly: does the fee-based advisory model inside CORE produce more than $2,251 a year in your market? One advisory engagement, or one additional closed loan, covers it. The calculator on this page will run that against your own loan size and pricing, and every assumption in it is printed on screen and adjustable.
Can I certify now and add CORE later? What happens if I cancel CORE?
Yes to the first, and at the same $229 a month. There is no penalty for waiting and no higher price for joining CORE later, so you are not being asked to decide under pressure at checkout.
CORE is month to month. There is no annual commitment and no renewal term. You can cancel in any month.
If you do cancel, you keep the CDLP® credential. It is yours once you have earned it. Your membership simply reverts to the standard $497 a year DLA Membership, which keeps your directory listing, your group coaching calls and your continuing education in place. What you give up is the CORE platform and your seat in the DivorceHousing.com rotation.
We would rather you start with certification and add CORE when the practice is ready for it than sign up for a platform you are not going to open. Both doors stay open in both directions.
The fee, and the compliance question
Can I really charge a fee for this, and does it create a compliance problem?
It is a fair question and it deserves a precise answer. The program runs two clean channels that never touch each other. Advisory work is delivered under a separate DLA-administered engagement, with its own agreement, its own disclosures and its own E&O coverage, and it is closed by a Closing Letter before any origination begins. Origination then runs through your lender exactly as it does today, commission-compensated, governed by TILA/Reg Z, RESPA and the LO Comp Rule.
The curriculum teaches the separation with the citations attorneys and compliance officers recognize: the activity-based definition of a loan originator at Reg Z 12 CFR 1026.36(a)(1), the framework at RESPA §8(c)(2), and the licensing line under the SAFE Act at 12 CFR Part 1008. You are not asked to take our word for it, and neither is your compliance department.
Does the advisory work replace my origination income?
No, and you should be suspicious of anyone who suggests it might. Advisory fees are earned on top of commission, never instead of it.
The relationship runs the other way from what people expect. The advisory engagement is how you become the professional in the room when the settlement is being shaped, and the settlement you helped shape is where your closings come from. The deeper work is not a detour from production. It is where the production comes from.
Eligibility, time and what comes after
Who can enroll in the CDLP®?
Mortgage loan originators with an active license. The CDLP® is a lending designation: the work it certifies, planning the housing and financing side of a divorce and handling the loan when the client is ready, belongs to a licensed originator.
Self-paced eLearning is 20 hours of curriculum plus the certification exam, and most members finish in four to six weeks around a full origination schedule. Live Virtual Certification runs as instructor-led video sessions over one week. Both lead to the same credential and the same directory listing.
What if my company will not pay for it?
Most members pay for it themselves, and there is a reason that works out in their favor. The credential is yours, not your employer's. It is an individual professional designation, it stays with you if you change companies, and so do the attorney relationships you build with it.
On the arithmetic: one closed divorce-referred loan, or a single advisory engagement, covers the first year. If your branch does want to participate, we run enterprise programs for lenders certifying teams, and we are happy to have that conversation with your manager directly.
What support do I get after I am certified?
Every certified member gets monthly group coaching, ongoing tax and legislative updates, the marketing collateral library, the national CDLP® directory listing, and the member community.
CORE members add the business development systems, automated attorney outreach, the coaching-call archive, the Mastery Series with new advanced content every 14 days, and inclusion in the DivorceHousing.com consumer rotation for their market area. Active CORE membership is what puts you in that rotation and gives you priority placement in the national directory. Among CORE members themselves, every seat rotates equally.
What comes after the CDLP®?
Two optional next steps. Any CDLP® can earn the Certified Divorce Housing Neutral™ (CDHN™) designation, which trains you to serve both spouses, or a court, as a neutral on the housing question, with no loan for either spouse in that matter. CORE members run their neutral engagements through the DLA, with the DMPR Neutral Edition, the engagement letters and the DLA’s insurance. It is a second role, not a replacement: you remain a CDLP® and keep serving in that role on your other cases.
Any CDLP® can also add the REM-S™, 40 hours of mediation skills training for the home decision in divorce.
Start where it makes sense. You can change your mind.
Both paths earn you the CDLP® credential and the same curriculum. Add CORE later at the same $229 a month, or cancel it in any month and keep the designation.
Recommended
CDLP® + CORE Membership
$2,495 one-time + $229/month Includes your DLA membership, so no separate $497 fee.
