 E-SIGN Growth Creates Need For Controls in Mortgage TransactionsMany impediments exist to full implementation of E-SIGN in the mortgage industry, but the relaxation of IRS requirements for "wet signatures" on the IRS 4506 T Tax Transcript request mean that acceptance of the electronic signature will grow substantially. Lenders must have an E-SIGN policy in place. QuickStart Mortgage Manuals is making a sample template policy available at no cost to allow the industry to arrive at a "best practice."
By: QuickStart 
emortgage While FNMA, FHLMC and other agencies have generally accepted and provided guidelines for E-SIGN for mortgages they purchase, they have combined to purchase a paltry number of completely electronic loans. In fact, even though the law (The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act - E-SIGN) states that E-Signatures are equally valid as live signature, the mortgage industry has been slow to adopt the technology. The difficulty in implementing E-SIGN technology surrounds the fact that, since the signature itself is not present to persist in perpetuity, the industry must retain not just signature evidence, but the entire architecture and underlying E-SIGN technology in its various forms. The technical difficulties encountered in accomplishing this are evident. Because of this, many lenders persist in requiring live, or “wet”, signatures or a facsimile thereof. The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (E-SIGN) was implemented in 2001, supplementing the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA). Due primarily to difficulty in affirming electronic signatures for note and security instrument purposes, but also to the legacy of paper processing, “wet” Among the exhibits in the loan files, electronic facsimiles have become ubiquitously acceptable - credit reports, appraisals, income and asset documentation can all be accepted. With this impediment removed a groundswell of lenders have begun to accept fully electric files. So, despite the challenges, E-SIGN is coming. QuickStart Mortgage Manuals provides a free, editable Mortgage E-SIGN policy and procedure template to help companies establish procedures for managing the process. QuickStart's President Thomas Morgan explains why . "I believe all industry players need to understand that we arrive at the best practices by sharing information. A lot of compliance companies are making money selling these types of policies, but the reality is that while they describe the law, they do nothing to ensure the practices match what is going on in the offices." Making policies and procedures that employees follow, according to Morgan, is the key to effective policies. "The best person to write your company's procedures is someone from within the company. But it takes a lot of time, so a lot of companies just buy something off the shelf. But you can get in trouble doing that if it doesn't match what you do. That's why we try and start with the process and THEN align it with the regulation, rather than prescribing a process in a vacuum." QuickStart is making the policy free for download from their blog site at http://www.mortgagenewsdigest.com where the user can download a google.docs version. It comes with a catch, though. "We really want people to chime in and provide some feedback about how it's working in their companies. We'll use that feedback to make the product better for all customers." says Morgan. QuickStart Mortgage Manuals customers already receive free updates to their policies like this from their website at http://www.mortgagemanuals.com/ Photo: https://www.prlog.org/ End
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