Mortgage Review Software Archives - Cogent QC: Award-Winning Loan Quality Control & Compliance Software

HUD Introduces Defect Taxonomy for FHA Lending

July 7, 2015 By Kaan Etem

In a growing trend towards streamlining and standardization of quality control and compliance methodologies, HUD has introduced a Defect Taxonomy in its “FHA’s Single Family Housing Loan Quality Assessment Methodology“. This document lays out the methodology that the FHA plans to adopt to improve its own QA efforts.

Knowing how FHA will be evaluating loans is helpful in designing your own QA program. Particularly useful is the definition of nine defect categories, numerous sources/causes for the defects, and four levels of defect severity. These can be roughly translated in ‘Cogentspeak’ to audit question categories, preset comments, and findings levels respectively.

For those configuring their Cogent FHA audit shells: your work has just become easier and more complex at the same time.

Cogent Selected for HW Tech100 List of Most Innovative Technology Companies

March 3, 2015 By Kaan Etem

Cogent is pleased to announce that we have been selected by Housing Wire for its 2015 HW Tech100 list of the most innovative technology companies in the housing economy. Over 250 nominations were received by the judges, who whittled the list down to the select 100. Of that 100, 60 were returning winners from last year and 40, including Cogent, were new inductees. We are honored to be included in such impressive company. As always, we will seek to continuously improve our technology in collaboration with our clients.

Here is how Housing Wire describes the HW Tech100:

Secondary Review Options in Cogent QC Systems

October 14, 2013 By Kaan Etem

In the most recent issue of American Banker, the CEO of Cape Cod Savings had this to say about the burden of regulatory compliance:

“…Because of HMDA and RESPA, we have checkers who check the checkers. Then we actually have another third layer of checkers who check the checkers who check the checkers. Then we have two outside consulting firms that check again.”

Sound familiar? All too familiar for some Cogent clients, who have multiple layers of QC and compliance operations – often at the corporate level, at the business unit level, and on an outsourced basis. And they invest so much in quality control and compliance because the alternative is painful. To cite just one instance, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) sent this around last week:

“CFPB Assesses Civil Money Penalties For HDMA Data Errors
The CFPB has announced that it assessed civil money penalties against Mortgage Master, Inc., a non-bank, and Washington Federal, a bank, after examinations identified significant data errors in mortgage loans reported pursuant to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). CFPB followed the announcement with a bulletin outlining the elements of an effective HMDA compliance management system and the resubmission thresholds, as well as other factors that the Bureau uses to determine if they will pursue a public HMDA enforcement action and associated civil penalties.”

Among other things, that bulletin states that “effective HMDA compliance management systems frequently include … comprehensive and regular internal, pre-submission HMDA audits.”

Aside from under-scoring the sheer scope of today’s regulatory compliance requirements, this reality also highlights the need for efficiency in performing secondary and tertiary audit reviews. This is why Cogent has been introducing more extensive secondary audit review options. The latest Supervisor Override functionality was covered in our recent ‘Version 4 Overview’ webinar (clients may contact support@cogentqc.com for a link to the recording.) With that, the possibilities now include:

Revert a completed loan audit and make changes to the original loan audit.
Use Supervisor Review to conduct a parallel supervisor audit, while preserving the original auditor’s work as the official audit of record.
Use Supervisor Override to override individual findings, thereby modifying the official audit of record but preserving a record of the original auditor’s findings.

These different approaches can be combined with appropriate pending and completion of loan reviews to tailor different secondary reviews to different situations. When all eyes are on you, it’s always good to have options.

Cogent Clients Feature Among Fannie Mae STAR Servicers

August 27, 2013 By Kaan Etem

Fannie Mae has just revealed its Servicer Total Achievement and Rewards list (STAR), profiling the servicers who rank high when tested on customer service and other key metrics. Four of the seven top-ranked servicers are Cogent clients, which means that either Cogent is in good company or vice versa! Either way, it’s validation of Cogent’s focus on best practices in the increasingly important servicing quality control function.

The top-ranked servicers include: Green Tree Servicing, Nationstar Mortgage, Ocwen Financial Corporation, PHH Mortgage Corporation, PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., Seterus, Inc., and Wells Fargo Bank.

Among other sources, Housing Wire cites the news at https://www.housingwire.com/articles/26473-fannie-mae-ranks-top-servicers, where you’ll find more info and links.