GSEs Announce UCD Delivery Timeline and Collection Solution

July 2, 2015

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced the collection timeline for the Uniform Closing Dataset (UCD). Lenders may begin delivering and testing the UCD XML file with the GSEs in fourth quarter of 2016.

The UCD is a common industry dataset that supports the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) Closing Disclosure. On Oct. 3, 2015, the CFPB will require the industry to use the Closing Disclosure for most consumer mortgages.

The mandated delivery of the UCD for all loans acquired by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, however, will be required in the second quarter of 2017. The GSEs also announced that they will implement separate solutions for collecting the UCD. Although the collection solutions, testing timelines and training will all remain separate for each GSE, the UCD file and implementation timeline are the same. Lenders and vendors are encouraged to plan now and implement the UCD for use in data exchange. With these new requirements coming, title agents and lenders should take time now to verify that their respective systems can accept electronic information from the other. Lenders, in particular, will likely demand this capability from settlement providers in order to ensure compliance with the TRID three-day rule. Rekeying of data from one system to the other may not be practical under the new rules.

The most important thing to note about the UCD is that, like the Uniform Loan Delivery Dataset and Uniform Appraisal Dataset before it, the dataset will be a required format for all loans acquired by the GSEs. This is not something settlement service providers are going to be able to ignore if they want to continue doing business with lenders that sell their loans to the GSEs.

The GSEs developed the UCD to improve the accuracy of how the Closing Disclosure information is communicated. Standardizing this data through the use of the UCD is the first step to helping the GSEs achieve accuracy, consistency and clarity around the loan transaction. A Fact Sheet is available that highlights the benefits of UCD.

“For software providers who must update systems to support the new Closing Disclosure, the UCD will take much of the guesswork out of determining which pieces of data go into which spots on the form,” Acker said. “In addition to providing a blueprint to populating the disclosures, the UCD will also serve as a standard data format for settlement software and loan origination systems to exchange information about loan costs.”

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