The language leaves no doubt that rescission is affected when the borrower notifies the creditor of his intention to rescind, according to the court.

It follows that so long as the borrower notifies within three years after he or she consummates the transaction, the rescission is timely, the court said. The statute does not also require him or her to sue within three years.

The ruling created a stir in mainstream media outlets with some misinterpreting it to mean that borrowers could easily rescind their mortgages within three years of closing.

However, some credit union executives and consultants said it just clarified what most already understood TILA's rules to be.

"I really don't think there is much to say," wrote Tracy Ashfield, founder of Ashfield and Associates in an email reply to CU Times. "The ruling is not a surprise. The TILA has a lot of teeth and compliance with TILA is of paramount importance. My take is [credit unions] take compliance of all regulations very seriously and will continue to do so."

Ashfield and Associates is a Madison, Wis.-based credit union consultancy that specializes in helping credit unions with their mortgage lending programs.

Others contacted agreed they would probably not do anything differently because of the Supreme Court ruling.

"We already have a lender review of our closing attorney's disclosures and a post-closing review by our loan processing department, so I don't think we will change our process," wrote Kyle Casburn, president/CEO of the $112 million, 12,000-member Seaboard Federal Credit Union in Bucksport, Maine, in an email exchange with CU Times.

However, Casburn said the ruling left a couple of crucial questions unaddressed.

"What I found most interesting was in Scalia's opinion that Section 1635(a) nowhere suggests a distinction between disputed and undisputed rescissions, much less that a lawsuit would be required for the latter," Casburn explained. "So, it appears that even if a lender does issue the correct TILA documents and the borrower disputes after the original three-day rescission period, the borrower still has three years to rescind. It follows that we will then have to then prove the disclosures were indeed correct in order to revert back to the original three-day rescission period with proper notice."

Still, Casburn ended on an optimistic note about the Supreme Court decision.

"Having said all that, if a lender is following best business practices for TILA document generation either via an attorney or mortgage processing software and performs post-closing audits, I don't think this will be a concern," he said.

This was also the take offered by Mike McClain, CUNA senior assistant general counsel, who said that questions about TILA disclosures most often came up when homeowners were behind on payments and trying to find some way to avoid foreclosures.

"What often happens is that the loan documents wind up with a lawyer who does an analysis and finds out that some mistake was made," McClain said.

If that scenario happens within three years from closing, it might be a problem, he added. McClain said it's not likely to happen that often because credit unions don't make many mistakes and because of the three-year limit.

In cases where a credit discovers a TILA error more than three days after closing the loan, McClain suggested the credit union own up to the mistake, send the proper forms and restart the three-day period from that point.