Platform integrates loan servicing, tax service data for a complete tax payment picture
DALLAS, Tex., February 06, 2018 /Business Wire/ — During the Mortgage Banking Association’s National Mortgage Servicing Conference & Expo, LERETA, a leading national real estate tax and flood service provider, announced it is providing new automation to the tax industry, something that has not been done in decades. With the release of its Total Tax Solutions (TTS), LERETA is providing a new, web-based platform designed to seamlessly integrate loan servicing and tax service data, for use by standard tax reporting servicers. The platform features dashboards, reporting, workflow management and built-in servicer guidelines for tax payment processing activities.
TTS allow servicers to efficiently process a pre-cycle mini-audit, automate tax payments, open items, conduct tax research and review delinquencies and payments. The five modules on the platform are: Pre-Cycle Audit Manager, Tax Cycle Manager, Escrow Open Item Manager, Delinquency Manager and Task Research Manager.
“Existing loan servicing systems have limited capabilities when it comes to managing the functions required for taxes,” said John Walsh, CEO of LERETA. “This causes an increase in servicing costs and the potential for mistakes that can frustrate borrowers. Total Tax Solutions make it easier for servicers to process tax payments, research tax-related inquiries from borrowers or internal departments, manage delinquency reporting and risk and substantially improve customer service. The platform has allowed LERETA to deliver extraordinary service in an industry where the standard for outsource servicing is abysmal. We are proud to now offer our standard tax clients a tool that effectively merges siloed systems and produces a more efficient and secure process.”
Until now, servicers have been forced to work around system shortcomings by depending on spreadsheets and disparate local databases. These “Band-Aid” solutions did not identify data integrity issues, which could cause reporting events that produce more exceptions, causing manual work for a loan servicer.
LERETA’s TTS have been in use by LERETA’s Outsource tax division to manage more than 2.5 million loans for more than a year and a half. The platform has been a key driver in LERETA’s ability to meet over 99.6 percent of customer SLA’s during that time and 100 percent over the last six months. During that same period, TTS also helped LERETA to reduce its penalties from claims and interest down by 70 percent, refunds processed by 30 percent and calls from borrowers down by 30 percent.
Additionally, TTS give clients using LERETA’s outsource service the visibility and confidence that all tax payments are being processed timely and within service level agreements (SLA) by LERETA. This precludes the inaccurate SLA reporting that is prevalent in the tax service industry.
TTS offer servicers the freedom to process their own tax payments using standard tax reporting services. For those servicers, TTS seamlessly integrate the loan servicing system data and the tax providers’ data so there is no re-keying or guess work required.
“An example of the platform’s capabilities was when we used TTS’ the Escrow Open Items manager module to audit/clean-up all payee codes prior to tax season for Washington State,” said Teresa Oates, escrow supervisor at Alabama Housing Finance Authority. “This provided accurate information on the TARS for match and pay, which in turn provided true open items under the beta test. We spent less time doing clean up and were able to process and pay all bills in a more efficient manner.”
About LERETA
Since 1986, LERETA has provided the mortgage and insurance industries the fastest, most accurate and complete access to property tax data and flood hazard status information across the U.S. LERETA is committed to giving customers extraordinary service and cost-effective property tax and flood solutions. LERETA’s services are designed to increase efficiency, reduce penalties and liabilities and improve processes for mortgage originators and servicers. LERETA’s dedicated teams of real estate tax and flood professionals along with LERETA’s experienced management team allow the company to lead the industry in service and technology.