Hi title readers —
Last week I asked what you thought about title's role in time-to-close, since many of our lender readers mentioned the title process as a significant fly in the ointment. I got some great responses!
First, several readers noted that the efficiencies they hoped for after the TRID disclosure rule went into effect haven't materialized.
From an escrow operations manager in Arizona: "With the onset of TRID in 2015, we in the settlement closing world thought we would have a greater opportunity to schedule closings within the 3-day timeframe after the lender delivered the CD to the borrower and that we would have documents delivered during that time to review and prepare for the closing.
"That has not happened because the CDs are going out without any notification to the settlement agent and we receive documents on the day they have to sign — even within an hour or less of when they have to be signed and back to the lender for a funding cut-off on resale transactions."
The owner of a title company in Michigan echoed those comments: "What happened to the 3-day rule on CDs? Why do we get packages the day of closing? Or even after closing is scheduled to start? Does not give our knowledgeable people time to catch mistakes and the anxiety of having borrowers sitting in the lobby makes us more likely to make a mistake. Please give us at least an hour to work on docs."
That same owner made a case for using a locally owned company, saying that "we do not have a 'national' mortgage market at the closing level. Each state, and most localities, have their own quirks with respect to closings. Local knowledge still counts."
Several other commenters noted that scheduling closings at the end of the month was a disaster.
As the Arizona ops person stated: "There is no longer any reason on an FHA Loan that is now accruing daily interest (instead of monthly as in earlier years) to push the closing to the end of the month. Payoffs are remitted with per diem interest and the new loan carries per diem interest. There is no saving for the borrower to close closer to the end of the month anymore, and the lenders need to realize this and pay attention to making the experience convenient and easy for the consumer. "
Looks like there is plenty of room for better communication and collaboration between lenders and their title partners, which is one of the reasons we started this newsletter. We get to sit at the intersection of the entire mortgage landscape, and we want to offer a range of information and perspectives from the disparate parts of the industry. Keep those comments coming!
Sarah Wheeler
HousingWire Editor in Chief
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