For a couple of Orange County (CA) residents Thanksgiving weekend just wasn’t what they were accustomed to. A Nevada grand jury indicted the couple in what appears to be the first criminal case filed connected to the nationwide ‘robo signing’ scandal. According to Jeff Collins, reporter with the OC Register, ‘both are title officers who worked for the Jacksonville, FL mortgage servicing firm Lender Processing Service.”
The time is ripe for the Lenders ‘C-Level’ Suite to step up, put a stake in the ground that these issues should never be tolerated – and move forward with an all-electronic and digital transaction – eliminating the associated fraud associated with human error, back-dating, white-out, cut and paste signatures, substitution of false documents, etc. Secure ‘tamper-resistant’ document processing technology has been available for years – tested, live and certified (by all Industry participants/leadership-sans Lenders) - gurading against such ‘all-so-common’ instances of fraud and outrageous manipulation. The article further mentioned a Huffington Post quote from University of Minnesota law Professor Prentice Cox, a former Assistant State Attorney General, adding: ” When criminal prosecutions are done for robo-signing, I would hope the target of those prosecutions would be the people who designed the system and profited from it, not just the low level people doing what they were told.” Read More…
Thinking about adding secure and efficient e-Signatures to your current
workflow? Well, quite bluntly, not all vendors offering e-Sign solutions are
the same. Just this week we heard of a REALTOR® that ‘grabbed’ an tablet e-Sign
app off the Internet and actually used this tool on a real estate transaction. When asked about levels of security, tamper evident audit trails, non-repudiation and lenders, Fannie Mae, County Recorders acceptance, etc., blank stare – huh?
As electronic and digital signatures affixed to contracts and agreements continue to gain adoption, seems like everyone is now jumping on the bandwagon. We also read where a Mortgage vendor, now claiming expertise, is offering this solution for Free, huh? Same compliance questions – who has certified or willing to accept these as binding?
When it comes to Real Estate and Mortgages, our 30 year old domain experience has advanced our vision for a complete digital, electronic and paperless real estate and mortgage transaction over the Internet. Having collaborated with Industry experts and pioneers for complete ‘buy-in’ we now enjoy at least a 4-5 year head start and provide the Industry’s ‘Holy Grail’ - a pure electronic end-to-end solution – from opening to closing (and beyond).
In another example, the real estate promissory note is probably the highest liability document any consumer will ever sign (representing the asset and in some residential markets that could translate to a $ 10 million or more risk) yet many so called e-Signed experts have not even approached, no less been certified by, the required compliance agencies, huh?
Not all e-Sign vendors are alike – ask the questions.
It’s hard to believe that after more than a decade of the passage the Federal E-Sign Act (June 2000) we are still reeling from headlines like this:
More foreclosure irregularities alleged in Maryland
Former law firm employee says over 1,000 deeds were recorded with false signatures
(Read Full Article)
You have to wonder what else it would take for the Industry to adopt secure and compliant electronic signatures, records, contracts, agreements and processing? ‘Robo-Signing’, backdating and manipulative notarizations, people falsely ‘wet’ paper signing as imposters, etc.-astounding!
Now is the time for all good lenders, servicers and investors to reduce the ‘human error’ factor and protect all parties involved in one of the largest transactions anyone will make in their lifetime. identity verification, authentication, Tamper sealing, document integrity, secure e-Vaulting, etc. No longer an experiment – the time is now to stop the Madness!
For mortgage servicers, the recent moves by GMAC Mortgage and JPMorgan Chase to suspend foreclosures is nothing short of a nightmare. Lawyers for aggrieved mortgage holders have thrown a huge wrench into the market with revelations of so-called robo-signers who sign documents en masse, without personally reviewing the documents they are supposedly attesting to.
A deposed Chase employee said she and her team signed off on about 18,000 foreclosure documents a month without reviewing the loan files, reports MarketWatch. Up to 56,000 cases are affected.
At GMAC, a professional signer said he signed up to 500 foreclosure affidavits a day without reviewing files or having his signatures notarized, MarketWatch notes.
This has exploded into a huge control and compliance issue that may expand to other mortgage servicers, while presenting something of a gift to affected homeowners. Lawyers would like to pain this as an issue of servicers not knowing who holds the note. But in the case of JPMorgan, signers say they relied on the work of others in the firm. That may not prove to be enough, however.
The servicers have seen enough to know that suspending foreclosures is the safest move right now. State AGs are taking a close look at the situation. It’s all complicated by the fact that the U.S. is a big owner of GMAC.
“Making A Difference – One e-Signature at a Time!”
Recently, I was asked “WHY do you do what you do?” my first reaction – WOW-what a great question! (needed to stall so I come up with some ‘genius’) Actually, I didn’t have to dig to deep-we live our passion every day.
Back in the late 90′s and after 25 years of selling real estate, I made a leap to the escrow/settlement side of the business. We needed to come up with a competitive ‘differentiator’ -At the same time the Internet was coming into its’ own and I thought” Wouldn’t it be great if we remove the stress and friction associated with largest transaction most consumers would ever be involved in. By giving back the agent a ‘lifestyle’ change and not having to chase signatures and documents all over town (and sometimes the World when clients were traveling) this would surely be a ‘Game Changer’ (name of the book I co-authored to be released in October, 2010). With over 25 years of domain experience we understood that we would nned to start with ‘the end in mind’ and by getting ‘Buy-in’ along the way. We also knew this would be a tremendous challenge as there are so many entities/parties that are involved in the transaction; Buyers/Sellers/Borrowers, Agents, Lenders, Title, County Recorders, Notaries, Secondary Investors and Escrow/Settlement/Closing agents.
When we initially approached lenders extolling e-signature benefits they knew it was a ‘No Brainer’ but the response was ‘if you get Title to issue Insurance against the process and Fannie Mae to buy the electronic Promissory Notes – I’m in! When we spoke to Title they said “great idea-if you get the County Recorder to accept these e-Signed docs – we’re in! You guessed it – County Recorder’s said ‘if you get approval from the Attorney General” and Notaries said “if you received the nod from the Secretary of State” – no problem. So, for nearly 8 years we have spent each and every day checking these players off the list. Thankfully, along the way, President Clinton signed the e-Sign Act which gave us a little more validation.
In 2004, we became the first company to go live with e-Signing, e-Notary, e-Recording and in 2007 we added ‘Certified by MERS e-Registry and selling e-Notes to Fannie Mae’. Still today we are the ONLY e-sign Solution provider that has taken the time and spent the resources to deliver this Compliant End-to-End Solution. (One of our e-Sign competitors continues to boast that they have spent over $3o million of Venture Capital – just to deliver an email signature!) The process is so unique that we received a patent in the US and Australia! (Patents pending is the US, Canada, Mexico, Hong Kong and the EU)
We plodded through, worked with Industry leaders and pioneers, and we never looked back-WHY? Because our mission from day one was to Streamline the entire real estate/mortgage transaction and have become the first and only platform that can boast a TRUE end-to-end transaction over the internet-no Faxing, No Scanning and No Paper!
Next question, “This has taken nearly 10 years to gain Buy-In and to develop – besides your clear Vision to Disrupt the way future RE transactions would be processed - where did you get the perseverance to sustain yourself, especially in a industry without any Early Adopters? Another great question…”We believed that if given a chance to legally sign/execute documents/contracts over the Internet why would any REALTOR® want to drive all over town chasing signatures and documents to open and/or close a transaction. It just made to much sense that Agents would not want to be tethered to a fax machine, scanner or worst yet to an expensive overnight carrier” (OOPS – sorry we closed at 5pm)
So here we are today, introducing e-Signing to the folks that ‘Start’ the entire process-REALTORS®. It didn’t make much sense to get Agents on Board until we received total Acceptance from all the parties afore-mentioned. Since we have now trained thousands of Agents we are being asked “what Escrow/Settlement companies are processing escrow related docs electronically?” These’ early adopter’ agents are now anxious to complete the entire process electronically since they have introduced e-Signing to their Consumers and now to have to Open escrow with a company that is still so 90’s – nothing more frustrating to have to now go back to original paper and Wet-signing!
We have now come full circle, Escrow companies have now been licensing our patent and technology and it won’t be long before we see the ‘tipping’ point where every real estate transaction will be processed over the Internet- in minutes vs. days!
We are currently embracing REALTORS® to join our Cause and truly ‘Make a Difference-One e-Signature at a Time!’- that‘s WHY we do what we do every day and enjoy every minute of it!
"Wow-what a ‘must have’ tool for any business. I’m on the road (water) often and always on tight deadlines-having our contracts securely signed and returned in minutes from anywhere in the World is truly Amazing!"
- Michael Fowlkes, Executive Producer of Inside Sport Fishing/FOX
Testimonial
"I am absolutely Thrilled! Got a repair request done in less than 1 hour and
sent to the listing agent within that time frame!!!!!"
- Debbie Panas, Broker/NC - Realtor/SC, Keller Williams Realty
Follow Us!