In this issue we are pleased to republish an article written by Howard Lax of the law firm of Lipson, Neilson, Cole, Seltzer & Garin, P.C. in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. To better understand Howard's article, some historical context may be helpful. In order to address widespread consumer confusion and complaints surrounding the mortgage servicing transfer process, RESPA was amended in 1990 to add a new Section 6 (12 U.S.C. 2605). Specifically, Section 6 required HUD to develop a model disclosure statement to be given to mortgage loan applicants containing the following information: (i) the possibility of the assignment, sale, or transfer of servicing rights to the loan; and (ii) the lender's historical practice in assigning, selling, and transferring servicing of loans, or, as an alternative to providing the historical data, a statement that the lender had previously sold servicing. Lenders were also required to keep a signed acknowledgment of receipt of the disclosure statement in the applicant's loan file. A copy of the model Servicing Disclosure Statement developed by HUD is available here. In 1996 Section 6 of RESPA was amended to eliminate the historical data provisions and the acknowledgment requirement. HUD issued proposed amendments to their regulations in 1997 to conform to the RESPA amendments; however, those regulations have never been adopted. Howard is quite correct to take HUD to task for failing to act in the more than 10 years that have passed since the RESPA amendments discussed in his article.

To view Howard's article, please click here.

On July 29, 1998, the Homeowners Protection Act of 1998 (the "Act"), also known as the "PMI Cancellation Act," became effective. ("PMI" refers to private mortgage insurance.) The Act applies to residential mortgage transactions consummated on or after July 29, 1999.

To better serve our customers, we've created a DocMagic Prepayment Matrix that lists our verbiage for hard, soft and state-specific prepayment addenda and riders. This matrix provides loan types and limitations for when particular verbiage appears. Also, the DocMagic form names and citations are listed.

Effective on Friday, March 9, 2007, preexisting loan programs of UBS Investment Bank ("UBS") were purged, and DocMagic users now have to download new loan programs of UBS. DSI's release of these new loan programs is designed to match UBS' loan programs so that they are readily identifiable to the DocMagic user. This hopefully will result in eliminating any confusion by the DocMagic user about which loan program to select. UBS' new loan programs may be viewed here. To view other investors' loan programs currently posted to our Compliance site, please visit the Investor Updates page. Please contact Customer Service at (800) 649-1362 if you have any questions.

Find the mortgage lending convention, conference, trade show and expo schedules in one location on DocMagic's website. Bookmark this page and check back often. We'll be updating this list throughout the year. Also, look for DocMagic at the events marked with an * so that you can stop by and say hello!

Click here to view the 2007 Conference Schedule NOW!

If there are events that you'd like to add to our list, please email us at compliance@docmagic.com. Thanks for your valuable feedback, and we look forward to a great 2007!

This month DSI posts loan programs of First National Bank of Arizona, GMAC Bank, Homecomings Financial, LLC, Opteum Financial Services, LLC, Taylor, Bean and Whitaker Mortgage Corp., and U.S. Bank N.A., and updates to the loan programs of ABN Amro Mortgage Group, Inc., American Home Mortgage Services, Inc., Aurora Loan Services, LLC, Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. (Correspondent), Credit Suisse First Boston (Correspondent), Decision One Mortgage Company, LLC, Flagstar Bank , Freedom Mortgage Corporation, Indymac Bank, NetBank, and SunTrust Mortgage, Inc. to its Compliance page. Find out the description of each investor's loan program, which promissory notes, prepayment riders and addenda are used, and what the rate caps and interest-only periods are for variable rate loans by visiting our Investor Updates page.

March 25-28 -- Stop by our booth (Booth #237) at the MBA National Technology in Mortgage Banking Conference & Expo at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida.

Click here to view the 2007 Conference Schedule NOW

Although not required by the Homeowners Protection Act of 1998, DocMagic has added a column to its initial amortization schedules (file names IAS.PMI and USAS.MSC) that reflects the borrower's monthly payment of private mortgage insurance. This column has been added to provide an additional disclosure to the borrower when there is PMI.

From time to time DocMagic customers have asked whether any generic Texas loan programs exist for Texas secondary lien loans and first-lien, fixed rate home equity (cash-out refinance) loans secured by the borrower(s)' homestead. These programs do exist and are listed below:

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 February 2007.