MERs

Posted By: Cornfed Turtle

MERs - 06/10/16 01:20 PM

Anyone out there do the MERs QC? This is new to us this year. I've gone thru the info on the website and devised audit procedures, but have a few questions.

We registered less than 20 of these last year and we service none of them. So when they call us a "lite" user...they aren't kidding!
Posted By: GrBo1006

Re: MERs - 07/01/16 07:00 PM

Turtle- any luck with this? Im new to MERS this year as well. We, however just hit the "big" threshold.
Posted By: Cornfed Turtle

Re: MERs - 07/07/16 05:34 PM

No luck at all. I thought I did fairly well going thru the book of what we needed to do and what I should check. Wrote up some audit procedures and called it ready to go. I got a user ID from our Admin and thought I'd take a stab. Couldn't get in.

I emailed the help desk and got a prompt reply that we weren't due for a QC at this time. I had the help desk confirm in e-mail that I had no obligations as the auditor to perform any QC on the MERS process at this time. Don't know how much it's worth, but I'm saving that e-mail.

There's a piece of me that still wants to have our admin pull from the site and I audit. (I prefer to pull my own data, but that's a different story.) I just don't want to have any one ask me for an audit that I haven't done.

Sorry about your "big" status. We probably won't have 10 loans total this year.
Posted By: trout22

Re: MERs - 07/14/16 08:45 PM

We're also "lite" members. I conduct routine audits (semi-annual currently) to verify that each loan:
1). Meets the Security Instrument Document Requirements. This includes appropriate template language, correct identification number (MIN) placement on the first page of the document, and the MERS phone number/address within the “definitions” section.
2). Validation of the Loan Data including accurate loan information such as the property address, registration status, occupancy status, lien position, and MIN type.
and
3). Ensure each loan satisfies the MERS initial registration timeframe and appropriate release timeframes upon payoff for those few that we actually retain.

And I do have a login as our "legal" representative so I can go in anytime and pull data to review. There are also a handful of reports which are required to be monitored by the FI so I spot-check those to look for anything suspicious.

I've only been conducting reviews for about a year (3 in total) so this is simply my interpretation from the MERS guidelines taking a risk-based approach for the possible errors I could envision. I welcome feedback from any others as to their audit program.
Posted By: Cornfed Turtle

Re: MERs - 07/15/16 06:22 PM

This sounds a lot like the procedures I have developed. Here's my abbreviated list, if of any help:

~ Verify contacts are current and annually reviewing by admins
~ Verify all users are employees and terminated employees are disabled
~ Determine reports menu is checked and rejects are researched; 30 day window on reconciliation of mismatches
~ Random sample of registered loans for accuracy and check timeframe. Data Integrity Standards.
~ Reversals
~ Verify process for confirming acceptance by Investor

Looks like I should do some further investigating into why my UserID isn't functional.

Thanks trout.