Our goal with the blog is to communicate important information to you. We recently heard Scott Pierce talk about mortgage satisfactions and we asked him to share his thoughts with YOU, our reader. If you’d like to be a guest blogger or if you’d like to hear from anyone else in the industry, please let us know. Enjoy Scott’s blog below…
– Lindsey Gordon, PropLogix / Marketing
What are the benefits of hiring a third party to track mortgage satisfactions, HELOCs, or releases?
Closers have a long list of things to check off before getting to the closing table, so it’s no wonder that as soon as one file closes, they’re jumping into the next one… and then the next. Which means that sometimes post-closing due diligence gets lost in the shuffle. Specifically, I’m talking about making sure that payoffs are actually received in full and corresponding satisfactions are actually recorded. Florida statute provides lenders with 60 days to file a satisfaction — that’s a long lead time for agents to go back and confirm post-closing recordings occurred when every day more important things need their attention – but, are those other things really more important?
Recently, PropLogix CEO, Tim Healy, came to me to discuss the issue and shared this surprising statistic:
What happens when you send the bank a payoff for a HELOC, but they fail to close the account? That line of credit stays open — and could then be used by the seller to incur debt against a property that the seller no longer owns! That is a recipe for a title claim. I bring this up, it’s the exact situation that a number of our current claims are based on, but it could be avoided easily.
Not only is it in our best interest and yours as a title agent, it is in the best interest of the parties you represent. Your buyers and sellers are relying on you to track these post-closing documents and avoid that risk.
Whether you do this by relying your calendar and setting reminders 60 days out for every file, or use a third party provider, your choice. Thebottom line is to make sure that all closers are vigilant about lien release tracking. Protect your company as well as your clients.
