As millions of Americans – many of them Black – celebrated the long-overdue arrival of a federal holiday marking Juneteenth Friday, many in the mortgage industry were scrambling.

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when United States soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, two months after the Confederacy had surrendered, bringing with them news of freedom for the city’s slaves thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation signed two years earlier, which ended slavery in rebel territory retaken by U.S. troops.

President Joe Biden signed a bill on Thursday creating Juneteenth National Independence Day after a sudden campaign in Congress to finally recognize the day. But the speed with which the bipartisan legislation moved through the House and Senate left banking regulators flat-footed and mortgage lenders in a bind: Since June 19 fell on a Saturday, the government observed the holiday Friday.

While stock exchanges, the Postal Service, the Federal Reserve and other essential services remained open Friday, lenders had to use their best judgement on how to handle disclosures, loans that might have been signed Wednesday or Thursday or rate-locks that might be expiring, creating potential legal jeopardy as the Biden administration looks to reverse its predecessor’s somewhat more relaxed attitude towards financial regulations.

“No one was around for commentary, on the federal level,” said Debbie Sousa, executive director of the Massachusetts Mortgage Bankers Association.

The American Bankers Association announced Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Acting Director Dave Uejio sent them a statement Friday with limited information.

“The CFPB recognizes that some lenders did not have sufficient time after the Federal holiday declaration to consider whether and how to adjust closing timelines. The CFPB understands that some lenders may delay closings to accommodate the reissuance of disclosures adjusted for the new Federal holiday,” the association quoted Uejio as saying. “The CFPB notes that the TILA and TRID requirements generally protect creditors from liability for bona fide errors and permit redisclosure after closing to correct errors.”

“[A]ny guidance ultimately issued by the CFPB would take into account the limited implementation period before the holiday and would be issued after consultation with the other FIRREA regulators and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors to ensure consistency of interpretation for all regulated entities,” Uejio continued.

The statement, the ABA noted pointedly in its own announcement, “did not address litigation risks and recession rights, two particular concerns of bankers as they seek to comply with the treatment of federal holidays in the mortgage rules’ prescriptive timelines.”

Neither the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the CFPB, the FDIC nor the Federal Reserve had posted guidance for lenders on their websites as of publication time.

Luckily, Massachusetts’ registries of deeds stayed open, the MMBA’s Sousa said, but lenders had to guess about how to handle three-day rescission periods – sometimes called “thinking days” – between when a loan is signed and when when the loan is formally consummated and funds are delivered, with Sundays and federal holidays typically excluded from that three-day count. Similar timing issues affected mortgage disclosures.

“I think what you’ll find is that what most lenders did is that we’re assuming they went ahead and closed on those loans. We have rate-locks to meet. Sometimes, for cash-out borrowers, they’re depending on that date to receive funds,” she said. “The members I’ve spoken with, most of them went ahead and honored the disclosures they sent out.”

Sousa said she expected Massachusetts’ Division of Banks to stay true to its “very common-sense” reputation when it likely issues guidance today. Federal regulators’ decisions, however, are an unknown quantity.

“Will we have to go back and correct things and amend things based on what the regulators say? We absolutely don’t know,” she said. “It’s great that we have this holiday, now, to celebrate such an important event in history, but on the flip side, would have I been grateful for them to say ‘effective 2022?’ I would have been thrilled.”