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Special Reports
Document Services
Growing Doc Services to Include Title and Escrow
By Anthony Garritano
LAKEWOOD, CO -- Document preparation vendor Guardian Mortgage Documents Inc. here
said at the 8th Annual Mortgage Technology Conference that it will add title and escrow services to its list of
services that it offers the mortgage industry.
"We're seeing renewed interest in title and escrow," said Tim Anschutz,
vice president-marketing at GMD. "A lot of people that draw docs through our subsidiary Guardian Mortgage
Services want to use them as a full outsourcing service that will do doc prep and other components through to post-closing
so they can focus solely on origination. One of the unique things about offering title and escrow is that we're
a subsidiary of a holding company one of the largest privately held title and escrow companies in the U.S."
This move is part of a strategic plan to continue to broaden the services coming
out of GMD. "We've been providing outsourced services for lenders including processing all the way through
post-closing with a focus on the closing and post-closing side," said Mary Kladde, vice president-mortgage
services at GMS. "A lot of up-and-coming correspondents and brokers have a lot of questions about closing
and post-closing and run into issues with wholesalers that don't provide closing docs.
"There are also wholesalers that need overflow services that contract with
us and funnel their brokers to us," she said. "We'll do the doc prep for them, audit the files, review
all the documentation, extract data and input into the system the actual documents. We'll also send in the figures,
balance with the title company, manage the title company and get the package back from them and do the lender QC
from there to help them sell the loan."
Guardian sees title and escrow as a "integral part of the process" and
believes it's a natural fit given their parent company's expertise is in the area. "Getting all these elements
in one place will remove that need for a third party, making the process faster and cleaner," noted Ms. Kladde.
"We also have a system that allows total visibility to the customer to eliminate the need for faxing back
and forth.
"Specifically, no matter who you are and what your interest is, you can go
online and look at your business to see exactly where it is," she said. "You can also assign work rights
if you have to go in and perform an action to complete the file. Even with read-only access that person has the
ability to communicate with others that can alter the file to tell them what needs to be done. The benefit is that
everything is in a central location that allows for easy communication. My phone calls went down by 50% to 60%
when we implemented this product because it eliminates the he said-she said banter."
Going forward, GMD sees a need to offer imaging, compliance and electronic signatures
as well. "We have a core competency in document preparation, but we can help lenders with other needs if they
come into play," said Mr. Anschutz. "There have been several requests for imaging. The good thing about
our system is that the final package is paperless because we scan and archive everything. However, if the customer
wants to retain the paper they can print it out at any time for their own records."
GMD also has in-house compliance and extended relationships with outside law firms
as well. "Even if you do have in-house compliance it may not be the full solution that people are looking
for," said Mr. Anschutz. "We have an in-house compliance person and several partnerships with law firms
around the country that specialize in different categories that we can design a solution for.
"However, even if you have in-house compliance at some time it's a given
that you're going to have to go outside of your attorneys to get something done," he said. "Someone may
have one attorney in-house and say they have in-house compliance but the reality is that the one individual can't
do everything."
GMD has also been contacted by a client to provide electronic signature functionality
and is looking into a variety of ways to fill that need.
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