Stewart Unveils Program to Help Lenders Comply With HAMP Supplemental Directive

March 30, 2010

Stewart Lender Services (SLS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Stewart Title Co., announced its ability to help national lenders and servicers comply with the Treasury Department’s recent Supplemental Directives for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). The directives are placing increased requirements on lenders and servicers helping distressed borrowers.

Supplemental Directive 09-09, Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA), requires that a borrower be offered an alternative to foreclosure if they are unable to qualify for a loan modification. SLS has an experienced borrower-outreach team and established workflows that can alert borrowers to the HAFA foreclosure alternatives. SLS can collect necessary financial packages from these borrowers and conduct the underwriting to establish their eligibility. In addition, SLS can perform a title review up front to determine any impediments to completion of a short sale or deed in lieu of foreclosure.

Supplemental Directive 10-01, Resolution of Active Trial Modifications, is intended to convert HAMP from a “stated income” model to a “verified income” model. The directive’s new guidelines have servicers struggling to meet borrower review schedules and communication deadlines. To assist, SLS provides a fully automated borrower correspondence and compliance solution. SLS’ solution ensures HAMP deadlines for underwriting, review, and communication can be met while taking the workload off the already over-burdened loss mitigation teams.

“We have an experienced FDCPA-compliant loss mitigation solution with proven expertise in borrower contact, loss mitigation documentation review and underwriting process,” said Jason Nadeau, SLS president. “We’ve established our ability to work closely with clients, large and small, to ensure their loans are managed effectively. Our solutions enable servicers to outsource compliance with these new Treasury requirements while maintaining an effective loss mitigation process.”

Treasury has also revised Imminent Default rules. In addition to a measurement of Debt Coverage Ratio, any borrower who is less than 60 days delinquent must be measured for imminent default and must be reviewed using the revised Request for Modification and Affidavit form. Under these new guidelines servicer workloads will greatly increase, and the underwriting review is more complicated than the previous HAMP review. SLS has the expertise to address the additional underwriting requirements and the processes to reach out to borrowers and obtain the required additional proof of hardship.

“We offer the ability for a servicer to completely outsource a pool of loans where Stewart manages a property from loan modification through short sale, deed-in-lieu and REO asset management and disposition,” added Scott Gillen, SLS senior vice president. “Utilizing a proven outsource partner like Stewart is an effective and prudent approach for servicers to keep up with the pace of change in the loss mitigation arena.”

More information on HAMP Supplemental Directive can be found here.


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