""Vantium Capital Inc."":http://vantiumcap.com/, a private equity fund that invests in undervalued mortgage assets, announced today that its specialty servicing unit, ""Acqura Loan Services"":http://www.acqura.net, has begun offering electronic loan modifications, or e-mods, to delinquent borrowers in an effort to improve and accelerate borrower acceptance and reduce loan modification timelines.
""As a special servicer, some of our biggest challenges are getting and staying in contact with borrowers and getting them to act before it is too late,"" said David Vida, president of servicing at Acqura.
According to Vida, e-mods dramatically reduce the loan modification timeline. ""We can present the mod to the borrower in a single call, review it with them step by step online and then get them to execute it on the spot,"" Vida explained. ""This eliminates mailings, Fedexing, and return delivery delays. Early results suggest that this process also helps to overcome borrower inertia: more than half of all borrowers approve the mod the same day, and nearly 80 percent do it within two days,"" Vida said.
The company is using Texas-based ""SigniaDoc’s"":http://www.signiadocs.com smart-doc technology to prepare and present the e-mods to borrowers of loans that Acqura services for investors and for its own portfolio.
""We picked SigniaDocs as our partner because they are a leader in the e-doc space,"" Vida added. ""Their click-to-sign approach works extremely well for loan mods, since most of these agreements, unlike mortgages, do not have to be recorded,"" Vida said.
For those investors who prefer or require a record, SigniaDocs has embedded eNotary functionality for e-mods in those recording jurisdictions that accept electronic notarization.
Tim Anderson, president of SigniaDocs, points out that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), as well as many other servicers have all endorsed e-mods.
With Acqura's e-mod program, borrowers are invited to view their loan modification documents online within a secure area of Acqura’s Web site, and review them in real-time with a representative from Acqura’s Home Owner Solutions Center. If they agree with the modification, the borrowers can immediately e-sign the documents online in a fully secured environment.
A growing number of investors will now accept e-signed mods, and federal and state courts have also recognized the validity of e-signed documents for loan modifications, the company said.
Once the e-mod has been executed, it is electronically delivered to the investor’s custodian and then filed in an e-vault.
""As the demand for blanket modifications grows, we expect that more resource and time-constrained servicers will follow Acqura’s lead and offer e-mods to their borrowers,"" Anderson said.