MISMO, ALTA issue new title, settlement document guidelines

Two influential groups in the home finance space have teamed up to provide information standards that will streamline title and mortgage closing processes.  

The Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization and American Land Title Association announced the publication of two new datasets, both of which should form a digital convention for documentation to benefit lenders, servicers, technology providers and other companies involved in settlement procedures. 

The ALTA title policy and settlement statement datasets both lay out consistent digital standards that allow information on forms to flow as data instead of documents. When applied, the datasets will reduce manual processes, minimize errors and delays and allow for information exchange across platforms, thereby resulting in smoother closings and servicing transfers, the two groups said.    

"By aligning ALTA's trusted forms with MISMO's data standards, we are giving lenders, title companies and technology providers a common digital framework that enables the industry to reduce friction, improve data quality and support a more modern, efficient closing experience," said Steve Gold, ALTA's associate counsel and senior director of products, in a press release.   

"These new datasets represent the strength of the partnership between ALTA and MISMO and our shared commitment to modernizing the exchange of title and settlement information," Gold also noted.

Operating as an affiliate of the Mortgage Bankers Association, MISMO develops initiatives and guidelines in an effort to improve and promote data quality across the home lending ecosystem. 

The two new datasets currently sit in candidate recommendation status within the standards organization and were created by a MISMO title and closing development workgroup chaired by Bryan Bedard of Rocket Close. Developed with input from mortgage industry participants, the datasets were designed with existing operational needs and ease of implementation in mind, MISMO and ALTA said.   

More recent MISMO updates

The introduction of new title and settlement guidelines is one of a series of updates and enhancements introduced or published by MISMO in the past 12 months, including:

• A mortgage compliance dataset, which aims to modernize risk examinations, reducing friction in the process and streamlining regulatory oversight and comes with support from the Conference of State Bank Supervisors and other regulators. 

• A new federal housing agency servicing dataset, which sets up a reliable, consistent framework for relevant terminology related to government-backed mortgages while supporting modernization of Department of Veterans Affairs loan processes.  

• A dataset supporting standardization of methods to electronically record and submit loan-specific data required on the addendum attached to applications for Federal Housing Administration-backed mortgages.  

• The publication of a loan boarding dataset that establishes a baseline for transferring newly originated mortgage loans into servicing and is designed to circumvent common issues that occur at setup resulting from missing or incomplete information. 

• The addition of an artificial intelligence glossary to promote conventional references to new concepts, methodologies and terminology arising from AI's development. 
  

Last fall, MBA also welcomed industry veteran Brian Vieaux as president of MISMO and later added Stephanie Moses to help lead the organization's current expansion efforts as vice president of strategic growth.