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TRID And The Scary Shark Music From Jaws

This article is more than 8 years old.

The dawn of the new plain language, consumer friendly integrated mortgage disclosure era is upon us. TRID (TILA RESPA Integrated Disclosures) implementation has dominated the mortgage and real estate industries’ airwaves and after much anticipation and one start date postponement, we are finally go for launch.

The CFPB first proposed TRID back in the summer of 2012 and while the rulemaking process wound its way to the threshold we stand on today, the anticipation of procedural mishaps grew.  TRID is coming conversations heightened readiness preparation and tension grew like that scary music in the movie Jaws whenever the shark was about to do scary shark stuff.  The mortgage industry trained and practiced and disseminated lots of information to the real estate, title and related industries, determined to get it right from the get go.

TRID is about 2 new disclosure documents, one at the beginning of the mortgage getting process called the Loan Estimate, and one at the end called the Closing Disclosure.  It is also about the when and how of the timing and delivery of each.  These disclosures are easy to read and compare, and they replace long practiced existing disclosures that are not so easy to read and compare. They must be delivered 3 days before the start of the mortgage approval process and 3 days before the closing respectively.

The mortgage industry is determined to integrate those 6 days and not add them to the qualified-mortgage-ability-to-repay mortgage getting adventure.

These new disclosures and the mechanics of how they will fit into the mortgage getting process have generated conversations, seminars, webinars, lunch and learns, and training initiatives on a scale never before seen in the modern age of mortgage finance.  In 25 years of being in this business, I have never seen more mandatory-you-better-know-this edicts handed down and across organization charts, all in the name of getting TRID right.

I have heard that closings could be delayed and that the mortgage approval process could be derailed causing pain and suffering and general chaos. “This is the biggest thing to happen in the mortgage industry in 30 years,” has been a common rally cry and has kept everybody and anybody that has anything to do with mortgage lending on high alert.

The good news is that all of this training and practice and readying means that we are about as ready as we can be for this consumer centric change. The mortgage lending universe has never been more focused on getting the beginning of the mortgage approval process off to a good start, and getting the closing done correctly and on time. There will no doubt be hiccups at first, lenders will get it wrong and pain will be felt, but then lenders will get it right and all of this scary-shark-music-from-Jaws fear over the implementation of TRID will fade and we will be highly functioning in a new norm.

Practice is the only way to get good at anything and next week will be the first opportunity to see how ready we are for implementing TRID.  I submit that it will not be long before the shark is no more.

TRID is a mortgage industry upgrade; it brings clarity and better understanding to the biggest and most important financial transaction many consumers undertake. It is a focus shift that puts borrower comprehension out in front of lender procedural economies; it is a right direction change. So as it turns out, all the oh-my-gosh hoopla over the coming of TRID, may be just what change sounds like.