The implementation of TRID has produced varied responses — many of them positive. Questions have arisen regarding the technology behind the forms, but reports say the process is going smoother than expected.
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CrossCountry Mortgage Inc. CEO Darrel Bilbrey has closed approximately 20 purchase orders since TRID was implemented.
“We’ve had a tremendously smooth rollout of TRID from an initial disclosures perspective,” Bilbrey said. “The Loan Estimate part is going well. Now we’re going through the Closing Disclosures. It’s a learning curve. We are on Ellie Mae’s system, so we are partnering closely with them to help them make additional system enhancements to further streamline the process. There’s still a lot of manual workarounds. The next three to six months, we’ll be focused on automating those.”
CrossCountry contracts with national title services and issues the Closing Disclosure to them.
“It’s our documents, our compliance, or legal responsibility and we take that very seriously,” he said. “We’re dealing with a lot of title providers across our 48-state footprint. We’ve dealt with some title companies over the last week who have been very much not ready for the Closing Disclosure, so we have to spend a lot of time on training and educating them.”
Richard Horn of Richard Horn Legal, PLLC, who led the final TRID rule when he was a senior counsel and special advisor at the CFPB, said technology is going to be the most important thing lenders will have to deal with when trying to comply with TRID. If the technology doesn’t work they don’t work.
“There are some software vendors that have put in the time and resources and have gotten it right. But there are technology problems out there,” Horn said. “I’ve seen disclosures that have errors that were caused by technology; either the data didn’t make it to the right place in the system or there was a misinterpretation by the LOS on how the disclosures work. There are tricky parts of the disclosure rules that seemed to have tripped up some of the LOS systems.”
Even the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is receiving complaints regarding some vendors still working through issues related to the rule.
“We recognize that lenders have dedicated substantial resources toward implementation, and we remain confident in lenders’ ability to implement the rule and continue to provide access to credit,” CFPB spokesman Sam Gilford said. “We have not advised lenders to avoid using particular vendors – market participants should focus on making loans in compliance with the rule.”
At this point, Horn is making himself available to his clients “24/7” to answer compliance questions.
“I make sure to tell them call me, and they are, before they send the disclosures out. I review the entire disclosure from top to bottom and run the calculations myself,” he said. “I worry about the lenders and title companies that don’t have that kind of resource; that just put their faith in their software vendor. They may not have the time, staff or capability to spot the errors I’m seeing. They’re likely sending out some disclosures that have violations on them, such as tables completed incorrectly.”
He continued to say that the bureau, under its service provider bulletin, said lenders need a plan in place if a software vendor is causing compliance problems. It has to take steps to address the situation, either finding a back-up vendor or canceling the contract with the vendor. The bureau will expect some kind of action.
RamQuest Chief Product Officer and Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Mary Schuster said her company committed to its customers some time ago that its method and process through this was to build what was known to the rule and the bureau’s stated intentions, and when the market started getting actual transactions, and more unique scenarios come in during these early TRID days, it would take requests, code them and turn them back around quickly to their customers for incorporation. So far, she said, the company is getting a lot of “remind me how I do this again” questions.
“We’ve told our users that we’ll have many rapid mini-releases so that if something changes or a new need emerges, they don’t have to wait for one big update three or four months later, because, our customers can’t sit out that long,” Schuster said. “When some folks saw we did our next planned mini release on (Oct. 17) that might have been misconstrued as an emergency; it wasn’t at all. We were delivering folks some enhancements we knew they might need for that first TRID month end, based on the closing instructions they’d already received.
“Everyone was aware that when we talked about full collaboration between LOS and TPS (title processing systems) moving that concept from whiteboard to reality would be the new frontier and one in a continual state of rapid evolution. You don’t hear an integrated provider saying anything different. Those are the types of things where we say what’s here is a good start, but that’s going to continually evolve.”
As these questions arise, partners in the industry are responding, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still hectic and rough in the settlement agent world, according to Schuster.
“There’s frustration and concern of not being familiar with the process yet, added to the time constraint, added to month end. It is very, very stressful out there in the closing shops,” she said. “And if the settlement agent is also learning software that’s new to them at the same time, that stress is compounded even further.”
And yet there have been victories that agents and vendors alike have gotten to celebrate.
“We were so excited. Not long after the Oct. 3 go live date, we got a phone call from a customer a little sooner than we thought it would be,” Schuster said. “They said (they) had received their first set of TRID closing instructions. The customer was very well prepared and engaged throughout the ramp up process, and they called us again when they closed and we were celebrating in here with them. We’ve been been working hard for two years now converting TRID theory into TRID reality, so we’re celebrating for our customers to say yes, they have the tools to succeed and do this.
“We know there’s going to be many more things evolving as this goes on, but we’re so pleased at how our customers are reporting how they’re managing. We’re proud of them.”
For more on TRID
TRID a ‘hurry up and wait’ game, title agents say
TRID fight moves to Senate, with veto threat looming
Regulators harmonize TRID enforcement guidance
TRID plans fluid in months before implementation
Wells Fargo reminds agents its rules going into TRID
For resources, lender instructions, special reports and more visit the Road through Oct. 3
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