Mortgage Closings Confusing

December 23, 2007

Mortgage closings can be confusing and inconsistent from company to company. The nation’s leading mortgage bankers group, title insurance and escrow associations have teamed up to structure a uniform set of mortgage closing instructions. Participating in the project are the Mortgage Bankers Association, American Land Title Association and American Escrow Association.

Their objective is to improve efficiencies and lower costs to the industry and consumers by replacing countless sets of instructions with two standard sets, a spokesperson for the group announced. The instructions will also help stem mortgage fraud and facilitate automated mortgage origination. The new general instructions will detail the requirements for all transactions and the specific instructions will provide a standard format for the details of each individual transaction, such as names, property address, loan type, etc. When these instructions are finalized they will not be required to be used by lenders, but they are likely to be widely accepted, it was reported.

The new instructions will be discussed during an online workshop in early December. This session will provide input for finalizing the set of instructions. "It’s critical that companies across the industry understand the instructions and provide useful comments so we can move forward to finalize the project for industry use," said Ken Markison, MBA’s senior director and regulatory counsel.

Posted in All Things San Diego, Lending, Local Business, Real Estate