Orange Coast Title Earns SOC2 Certification with ‘No Exceptions’
September 15, 2015
Orange Coast Title Company and its Family of Title Companies, a provider of title and escrow services nationally based in Santa Ana, Calif., announced that in July 2015 it completed its SOC 2 Type II Independent Service Auditor’s Report (SSAE 16) examination and was certified with “NO EXCEPTIONS” to the American Land Title Association’s Best Practices protocols.
This includes all 26 companies that comprise OCT’s family of companies.
Regulators have reminded lenders that they are responsible for ensuring that their third-party service providers comply with applicable regulations. ALTA developed its “Title and Settlement Company Best Practices” to help members highlight policies and procedures the industry exercises to protect lenders and consumers, while ensuring a positive and compliant real estate settlement experience.
By implementing the policies and guidelines of the title industries Best Practices as defined by ALTA, title companies demonstrate that they have implemented the controls to mitigate risks to protect consumers and protect intuitions from liability.
Orange Coast continued its role as an industry leader in early 2014 by completing its initial SSAE 16 SOC 1 Type 1 and II audit and reports with “no exceptions.” It was the period leading up to that audit and report in which OCT put into practice the safeguards and processes necessary to provide Real Estate Lending Institutions the assurances necessary to comply with CFPB rules and regulations. Orange Coast reported it has maintained and improved on those processes and procedures over the past year and a half as evidenced by the new “no exceptions” report just released.
“We are pleased that our SSAE 16 reports have shown that we have suitably designed and maintained our systems and that we are operating with effective controls.” said Rich Macaluso, president of Orange Coast Title Company. “As part of our mission to the real estate lending industry and commitment to our clients, we strive to deliver the best product possible. By going through such an extensive six month auditing process twice, we are now able to provide lenders and other financial institutions a report that addresses their concerns in a format which is most familiar to them. We intend to engage an outside independent audit firm annually to hold ourselves accountable to compliance and to provide the real estate lending industry with the assurances this report gives. ”
The SSAE 16 requirements became a hot topic in the financial industry after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the regulatory body which supervises all national banks, federal savings associations and foreign banks, issued a bulletin on Oct. 30, 2013, detailing third-party relationships and risk-management guidelines.
“Lending institutions, warehouse providers, secondary investors and FDIC Banks are looking for security from their critical third-party vendors and the SSAE 16 has become the standard that many in the industry are requiring from their title insurance providers”, said Bill Burding, Orange Coast Title Company’s executive vice president and general counsel. “In evaluating which title company to use in a given transaction, it is becoming critical to choose a company that has achieved a SSAE 16 Certification from an independent auditor to make sure that the consumer is protected. Our SOC I and SOC II reports describe our controls, our auditors testing of our controls and our auditor’s opinion on the fairness of our description, suitability of the design and operating effectiveness of our controls”.
Contact ALTA at 202-296-3671 or [email protected].