Ernst Publishing Co., a provider of technology and closing cost data for the real estate and home finance industries rolled out a new collaborative fee management system at the recent National Settlement Services Summit in Atlanta. The system allows settlement agents to work with lenders to negotiate fees, then manage these fees in a web-based tool through which they can certify the fees are accurate and make them available to lenders who need to provide Loan Estimates required under the new TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosures (TRID) rules.
Jan Clark, vice president of sales and marketing, told The Title Report in the past lenders would work with thousands of settlement agents across the country. But managing these vendor relationships and their fees when they are quoted through a lender’s process today has become a much larger challenge.
“With tight TRID deadlines looming we’ve seen lenders scale down their networks of thousands to in some cases 10 settlement agent firms or less,” Clark said. “Ernst has been listening to concerns from local settlement agents that these potential changes may majorly damage their local businesses. At the same time we’ve heard local loan officers voice concerns that they don’t want to see an impact to their local working relationships, while vendor managers see no other choice.”
The new software enables local agents of any size to provide all of their fees to any lender who invites them to join their settlement agent network. The agent logs into a specific lender’s settlement agent portal, downloads or enter their fees and the accuracy is certified in minutes. They can be updated at any time. The lender is then able to approve the fees and migrate them to their production environment, either automatically or manually.
“This allows both the lender and the settlement agent to keep up to date and certify the fees that will be quoted on the Loan Estimate,” President and CEO Gregory Teal told The Title Report. “This information was previously maintained on spreadsheets and subject to change, making these companies high risks in the new post-Aug. 1 (Oct. 1 as of time of publication) lending environment. Several clients are leveraging the power of this tool, and the response has been overwhelmingly favorable. The true beauty of this is it can be utilized by businesspeople and requires no technical expertise or handholding by a tech firm.”
Ernst today is integrated with many LOS and closing systems and easily can work with software such as Closing Insight, according to Clark. She said generally fees are quoted early in the transaction, then updated through a program such as Closing Insight at closing.
“Ernst’s systems help ensure the fees the lender provides into the Closing Insight portal are accurate from the onset,” Clark said. “Ernst also has the ability to alert both the lender and the settlement agent if the settlement agent fees, recording fees, transfer taxes and inspection fees have changed during the life of a specific loan transaction automatically. Lenders and settlements agents can then determine if the fees that are visible in Closing Insight-type program require updating for any reason.
“It is in use today and the agents that are using it are very pleased with the ease with which they are able to provide the information the lender will require,” Clark concluded. “As for lenders, this answers their specific needs. They will begin using this technology in earnest for their loans on Aug. 1. (Oct. 1)”