In order to help mortgage servicers comply with the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA [1]), Irvine, California-based data and analytics firm CoreLogic [2] has introduced a comprehensive suite of solutions [3].
CoreLogic's announcement comes just two weeks after five of the nation's largest mortgage servicers – JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, GMAC Mortgage, and BAC Home Loans Servicing – were penalized [4] a combined total of $123 million by the U.S. Department of Justice [5] over non-judicial foreclosures that violated the SCRA.
President Obama announced an agreement in August 2014 between the White House and major mortgage servicers in which the servicers agreed to proactively identify and reach out to active-duty service member and inform them of the benefits available to them. CoreLogic's new SCRA Compliance Products will help servicers identify and validate active-duty service members; notify, track, and report on benefits available to active-duty service members; and prepare for audits and other customized services, according to CoreLogic.
Servicers agreed to search their portfolios for active service members once per quarter according to the August 2014 agreement. CoreLogic offers Verification of Military Status (VOMS) in order to achieve this; VOMS searches the U.S. Department of Defense database to verify required SCRA information such as active-duty periods, date of discharge if applicable, and future call-up to active duty notification.
Once a client has been identified as an active-duty service member, CoreLogic's suite of solutions can assist servicers with notifying those service members by using the Solutions Express Document Generation service, which will generate notices, send them to clients, and manage any responses. Then, in case the servicer missed or overlooked any active-duty service members in their portfolio, CoreLogic's SCRA Audit Service will help identify them and assist them appropriately.