Habif, Arogeti & Wynne Introduces Best Practices Compliance Program
October 23, 2014
Habif, Arogeti & Wynne LLP (HA&W) a Georgia-based tax, accounting and business advisory firm, introduced its ComplianceSuccess Program.
A 2012 bulletin from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) reminded mortgage lenders that they are required to have an effective process in place for managing the risks of their third-party service provider relationships, including settlement attorneys and title agents. Because of these changes, settlement attorneys and title agents need to provide their mortgage lenders with assurance that they are in compliance with federal consumer financial laws.
To assist settlement firms and title agents with compliance, the American Land Title Association (ALTA) issued its Best Practices Framework as a guide. HA&W said its ComplianceSuccess Program takes the Best Practices Framework and provides comprehensive benchmarking and reporting services across all seven of ALTA’s Best Practices pillars.
The ComplianceSuccess Program provides independent, third-party assurance using CPA professional standards on attestation reporting, trusted by banking and financial institutions. To ensure their benchmarking, readiness and reporting services are in lock step with industry standards, HA&W is involved with the ALTA, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Mortgage Bankers Association.
“In our ongoing efforts to remain ahead of the compliance curve, we selected HA&Ws ComplianceSuccess Program based on the important value of CPA compliance confirmation,” said John G. Aldridge Jr., managing partner of Aldridge Connors LLP. “HA&W offered the partnership we were looking for and the ComplianceSuccess Program provided an easy path to third-party compliance confirmation at the best price point.”
HA&W’s ComplianceSuccess Program offers a range of services that include a compliance benchmark that assesses the current level of compliance against ALTA’s Best Practices in as little as 10 days; a gap analysis and remediation plan; compliance testing and reporting using the ALTA Best Practices Framework as a benchmark, as well as on-going monitoring services. ComplianceSuccess offers two levels of reporting: a review that provides a base level of assurance on compliance reporting for mortgage lenders, and an examination that provides the highest level of assurance for compliance reporting available to CPAs based on attestation standards.
“We launched ComplianceSuccess Program to provide the title agent industry with a fast and affordable path to comply with ALTA Best Practices,” said Kim McConkey, partner-in-charge of HA&W’s ComplianceSuccess Program. “We offer assurance that is trusted by the mortgage banking industry, so that title agents will not only retain their current mortgage lender relationships, but grow their businesses, and increase market share.”
Contact ALTA at 202-296-3671 or [email protected].