This month, we add additional high cost information for the states of Arkansas, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin, and West Virginia to our High Cost/Predatory Lending Page. DocMagic performs a high-cost analysis for these states and those states whose high-cost memos are already posted on the Compliance page of our website: California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Utah.

At the Annual Mortgage Bankers Association's 92nd Annual Convention and Expo in Orlando, Florida, held in October, 2005, the Legal Issues and Regulatory Compliance Committee introduced a proposed draft of the Uniform Closing Instructions ("Instructions"), which consists of General and Specific Closing Instructions. As Renee Smith-Cleary, Assistant General Counsel with DocMagic, Inc., was the primary drafter of the Specific Closing Instructions and participated in the numerous Committee conference calls related to the development of the Instructions, she attended the Convention meeting at which the Instructions were introduced.

Mike Sorohan's article, "LOS Vendors Adapt to Changing Conditions," in the MBA's Tech Newslink, featured the opinions of panel participants on various issues facing the industry. Mike Sorohan's article is "Part Two of a panel discussion on workflow process that took place recently at the Mortgage Bankers Association's 92nd Annual Convention & Expo in Orlando, Fla." Renee Smith-Cleary, Assistant General Counsel with DocMagic, Inc., was among the panel participants. To read the full article, click here.

When software programs and web pages work seamlessly, it is sometimes easy to forget the people behind the scenes who were clearly instrumental in creating and maintaining the software and web pages. So, lest we in the Compliance Department forget to express our gratitude before this year comes to an end, we would like to recognize Colin MacDiarmid -- the man who has improved the "Compliance" page on our website and made it possible for the Compliance Department's electronic newsletter, The Compliance Wizard ,to be published on a monthly basis this year.

As compliance is our job, we in the Compliance Department want to alert our readers to a website that contains driver's license information on a nationwide basis. Check this website out, www.license.shorturl.com/, and make sure your driver's license information and that dreaded picture of yours are not on it. Otherwise, we would recommend that you contact the proper authorities to report that someone is definitely up to some shenanigans!

A number of customers have called within the past month to inquire about the California prepayment penalty addendum and rider that DocMagic defaults to when a DocMagic user indicates that a prepayment penalty will apply to a loan where the secured property is located in California. Particularly, customers have asked about the applicability of the following paragraph in the prepayment penalty addendum and rider:

Document imaging has been a hot topic for some time now, but many companies have found these expensive systems difficult to integrate into their existing origination platforms. The idea of having every document in the mortgage loan file available as an electronic image is attractive, but since the vast majority of loan originators are still managing their business with paper folders, there hasn't been much pressure to implement stand-alone imaging solutions. Fraud mitigation may prompt more lenders to rethink that in the near future.

In order to keep DocMagic software users better apprised of document changes and additions as they occur, DSI posts listings of all newly created and revised documents. Here is the list of forms created or modified in October and November, 2005.