It may sound like common sense, but clear communication can stem wrongful foreclosures.
Servicers today are already overwhelmed with distressed loans, and validating additional information is almost impossible.
Having case-management technology with solid communication features can help.
All the parties involved in default management need to know certain information related to their role at specific stages of the process. The ideal platform should provide a unified, controlled view of loan information based on the role of the viewer.
This eliminates having data transferred, re-entered or being reviewed at several different places or on several systems.
All it takes is a small human oversight or error to have grave mistakes take place, such as a bank foreclosing on the wrong property.
If an employee is manually entering a house number, it is easy to transpose a digit and cause a liability for the company. As an example, 95162 could be entered as 95612, taking you to a totally different house. Or 123 Side Lane could become 123 Side Avenue, or 123 Side Street. Eliminating the need to rekey the information reduces the possibility of such incidences. Having easy mechanisms to share information among disparate systems (internal/external) or even being able to review data in one place can play a vital role in the quality of service provided by employees.
Further, quality control is easy to establish at the first entry, making it more effective and economical. Having "validation" mechanisms in place at the source can go a long way in reducing the time and effort spent verifying information.
Spending five minutes at the onset helps eliminate the need to continue reviewing the same data at every internal gate.
Enabling all parties to have access to information through the same controlled platform also ensures that correct information is sent to the appropriate parties, such as a property inspection company, foreclosure trustee or valuation vendor.
And because of the number of parties involved in the process, there needs to be a strong foundation that enforces business practices and processes. When foreclosure is initiated on any property there must be a business process in place to ensure that the address is validated or that ordering the appropriate title has been done.
These are integral components of starting the foreclosure process, and having that process completely automated through configurable business practices is paramount. It must be simple: it should not require a technology expert.
One of the most important aspects of a platform is that it offers real-time communication among all participants, whether working on one system or various systems.
For example, if someone had noticed an error in the address, they could have sent a secured message to the contractor, who would have received an alert on his or her mobile device. Processes must be automated to eliminate unnecessary actions. Wasted time means wasted productivity, and in today's environment we need to be as proactive and productive as possible.
