Quandis Plug-In Offers Servicers Scaled-Down SCRA Checks

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A plug-in developed by default management technology provider Quandis enables mortgage servicers’ attorneys to verify whether borrowers are protected by the active military duty provisions of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act from an Excel spreadsheet before they initiate foreclosures.

The Excel plug-in is a scaled-down version of the Military Status Service Search technology that Foothill Ranch, Calif.-based Quandis released in April 2011 and is intended for small law firms that lack the IT staff necessary to integrate the full platform to their existing case management systems.

The technology works as an add-on to Excel, and allows attorneys to conduct searches from the spreadsheet software and any borrowers identified as active duty military servicemembers are displayed in the spreadsheet software. Quandis charges a per-search rate for the plug-in, the same as its fully integrated military search technology.

The SCRA protects active duty members of the military by requiring lower mortgage interest rates and bans foreclosures for the duration of the servicemembers’ active duty and up to nine months after returning from duty.

Servicers must check borrowers active duty status on a Department of Defense website. In the past, servicers were able to run automated checks through the Department of Defense’s website, however, the site was prone to crashes due to heavy online traffic. To prevent the site from crashing under the weight of heavy traffic, the DOD implemented a series of manual processes to performing checks, including a CAPTCHA phrase that require someone to type in letters displayed in a box.

While it kept the site more stable, the elimination of automated checks via the DOD website left servicing firms at a costly disadvantage. Large servicers took on hourly employees to run manual checks—as well as the typo risk that comes with any repetitive manual process.

For some servicers, such errors resulted in lawsuits. Smaller servicers, unable to afford the cost of workers to do the manual checks, were at an even bigger disadvantage.

The technology that Quandis released last year uploads borrower information to a server for the technology to run all of the checks. But Quandis later found that smaller law firms were unable to fully take advantage of the service, prompting the development of the new plug-in.

Both versions of the technology reduce the human error risk of manually conducting SCRA checks on the DOD website, said Quandis Chief Technology Officer Eric Patrick, who added that when problems do come up, the “errors tend to go back to errors made during loan origination.”

though the full military search platform does offer some services that the plug-in can’t provide. For instance, the full military search platform allows servicers to access the information much more quickly than the plug-in. Another difference is that the plug-in provides a hyperlink to Quandis’ imaging system as proof that a search has been conducted, while the search platform more conveniently pushes a certificate from the DOD website into the servicer’s own imaging system.

Patrick said the small law firms using the plug-in have been satisfied with the product and while overall, both services provide an easy-to-use technology, “the companies that have the very large volume tend to need little bits of integration that the plug-in can’t provide.”