Loan Audits

Maybe I should rephrase my question. For those who do audit, do you have any tips, or forms that you could share? I am new to this and looking for any help that I can get. The loan side is what I particularly need to be focused on right now.

Thanks

BOL had a nice webinar last year entitled "New Headaches in Auditing Residential Real Estate Loans." The presenter even supplied an audit workprogram that was very comprehensive. But I must point out that the webinar focused primarily on compliance issues.

If you are new to audit, you may want to see about attending ICBA's auditing certification courses.

Thank you! I have already put that date on my calendar. It's not until May. Would you happen to have any of the material from that Webinar?

The Webinar can be purchased from BOL. Here is the link:

http://www.bankersonline.com/bankerstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=984

Even though it is archived, you will still get the materials and they are well worth it. I hope this helps!

After performing a loan audit, do you keep your audit findings in the file? I've been comtemplating if I should keep in file to prove that I found the error but then again don't want to open up anything hoping an examiner doesn't see it??

Curious to see what others do.

If you don't save your workpapers with the documented findings, sample sizes, sample populations, etc., many examiners will just totally discount the audit findings and start doing thier own digging.

You're in audit - that's your job.

Imo, both unprofessional and unethical if you are the IA. Just imagine if an examiner found out you did this.

I think ahkcompliance is talking about keeping the audit findings in the actual loan file. I do not. I keep my loan review worksheets with the rest of my workpapers.

Here is an Examiners' Training Site that may be of interest to you since it provides Loan Review training for new examiners. Whatever audit program you develop or use should consider what the examiner will be looking for when they come onsite.
http://www.stlouisfed.org/col/courses/tool/start/start.cfm?m=040&l=06&s=2.htm

I do not put audit findings in the loan file - but my audit workpapers contain a copy of the disclosure form or whatever was wrong. Examiners will request your audit reports that list all the findings so they are going to see them all anyways. They may or may not ask for your workpapers. Having no findings gives you little credibility.

I've had multiple experiences in which we've issued unsatisfactory audit reports - the examiners reviewed the report and then did some additional testing of their own to confirm management fixed the problems going forward. Because they found no problems after our audit, the examiner did not make any mention of the problems I discovered in their report.

When you have issues with examiners is if your audit report says everything is great and then the examiners find consistent errors that you didn't catch - or worse, they continue to find problems after your audit because management didn't take corrective action.

Thanks #12, that is what I was referring to. I wasn't sure if I should keep in the actual loan file or just start a seperate file. I have seperate file set up for my loan audit reports and workpapers.

Thanks again!

Your audit workpapers should basically serve as a roadmap of everything you did for the audit that led to your report. They should be clear and concise so that anyone can pick up your workpapers and follow them from beginning to end and, using the exact same samples, come to the same conclusions.

I keep all my audits and work papers together in folders. When the examiners come it is all there and when we had our last OCC exam in February they said they liked how easy it was to follow through on everything. I keep these folders in a vault for safekeeping!!