Mississippi-based Mortgage Connection Details Requirements for Best Practices

September 15, 2015

In order to meet regulatory compliance and investor requirements, Mississippi-based The Mortgage Connection recently announced it would require its closing agents/attorneys to become certified to ALTA’s “Title Insurance and Settlement Company Best Practices.”

The company will apply a two-tiered approach to certification requirements based on total volume of loan closings, staff size and the number of offices. Closing agents and attorneys that handle less than 360 closings per year, have five employees or less and have no more than two locations will face less stringent requirements. Closing agents and attorneys that surpass the thresholds will be required to receive certification to the Best Practices by a third party, according to Mortgage Connection.

Closing agents and attorneys are asked to inform Mortgage Connection by Sept. 30 of their intent to being the certification process.

“We are requesting that you actively begin the certification process by no later than January 1, 2016,” Mortgage Connection said in its letter. “In the interim you must be fully capable of being in compliance with the new TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosures (TRID) by October 3, 2015.”

To aid compliance with TRID, Mortgage Connection is requiring its closing agents and attorneys to provide closing costs no later than 10 days before the scheduled closing. Mortgage Connection also asked its settlement providers if they would consider standardizing closing costs to help reduce the number and amount of tolerance exceptions that may have to be cured.

Click here to view a chart of various lender requirements for Best Practices.


Contact ALTA at 202-296-3671 or communications@alta.org.