Every month, we'll be spotlighting someone from the LERETA roster. This month get to know Sheila Armstrong, our First Vice President / IT Strategic Analyst. Get to know Sheila, below! What is your role with LERETA? Primarily, I work with the Product Owners and Business [...]
The Escrow Enigma: Recent Survey Sheds Light on Consumers’ Misconceptions
By Brian Carmody, Director of Marketing & Communications Without sounding like Chicken Little (“The sky is falling!”), an escrow storm is brewing. The combination of dramatic increases in homeowners and flood insurance premiums and higher tax bills due to home price appreciation are going to cause millions of homeowners to face higher monthly mortgage [...]
Elevating the Call Center Experience
By Jonnine Eras , SVP, Senior Tax Operations Manager It’s easy to judge call centers by the customer experience they are often associated with delivering — excessive wait times, bouncing callers to different agents or departments, the inability to resolve customer issues, and an impersonal customer experience, among other complaints. When you stop and [...]
Managing Tax Payment Deadlines Requires Constant Vigilance
By Pat Hedges , SVP, Senior Tax Operations Manager When it comes to taxes, paying the right amount is important, but so is paying on time, as anyone who’s missed a tax deadline and been hit with late fees and penalties can attest. Unlike income and business taxes that have well-known due dates for [...]
Timing Escrow Analyses to Minimize Confusion and Costs
By Jim McGurer, SVP Operations By law, servicers are required to conduct escrow analyses (EAs) on most first mortgage accounts every year. The timing of when these analyses are done and when the statements are sent to borrowers is left up to the servicer. While LERETA is able to accommodate any schedule, there are [...]
Every month, we'll be spotlighting someone from the LERETA roster. This month get to know Warren May, our Senior Data Conversion Programmer. Get to know Warren, below! What is your role with LERETA? I help write programming maps that convert Agency / Jurisdiction data files [...]
Every month, we'll be spotlighting someone from the LERETA roster. This month let us introduce you to Sandra Clemens, our Tax Specialist III. Get to know Sandra, below! What is your role with LERETA? I handle all processes for the Trust Oil and Gas portfolio, [...]
Every month, we'll be spotlighting someone from the LERETA roster. This month let us introduce you to Kim Doyel, our Key Client Success Manager. Get to know Kim, below! What is your role with LERETA? I support Outsourced and Standard Tax clients by building relationships [...]
Navigating the Unique Challenges of Managing Property Taxes for Manufactured Homes
By Alfred James, VP, Operations Manager -- Special Services, DTO Quality Auditing & DTO Non-Escrow Servicing When it comes to housing, America has two fairly large challenges. The first is a lack of inventory: depending on who you listen to, there is a need for somewhere between 3 and 5 million new homes. The [...]
Every month, we'll be spotlighting someone from the LERETA roster. This month let us introduce you to Victoria Safranek, our Outsourcing Disbursement Lead. Get to know Victoria, below! What is your role with LERETA? To sum it up, my team disburses current property taxes from [...]
LERETA’s Legislative Updates 2023 Q4
Legislative Updates By Staci Hardy, VP Internal Audit & QC Manager LERETA's compliance team regularly monitors and tracks statewide property tax legislation that impacts tax service for our customers. This quarter we are including details on introduced legislation and the progression of seven new bills that we are following. None of these will have [...]
LERETA Joins Operation Homefront to Give Back to our Military Heroes and Promote Home Ownership
In this season of celebrating the joy of giving, LERETA is proud to partner with Operation Homefront to give back to military families who’ve sacrificed so much to ensure our freedoms. The LERETA Tax Grants program provides homeownership assistance to military veterans with one-time grants that pay their annual property taxes. The initiative is [...]
Getting Ahead of the Coming Escrow “Shock Wave”(Part 2 of 2)
By Mike Whiting, SVP, Senior Tax Operations Manager In part one of this two-part blog, my colleague, Jonnine Eras, examined some of the forces that are converging to create a perfect storm for borrowers with escrow accounts and their servicers. These trends include dramatic increases in homeowners and flood insurance [...]
The Cheesehead Challenge: Unique Tax Collection Policies in Wisconsin
A Q&A with Douglas Dick, Vice President, Escrow Manager Q. Several years ago, you coined the term "The Cheesehead Challenge" in describing tax processing in Wisconsin? What is it about Wisconsin taxes that make them so complicated? Some things are just different in Wisconsin. Take the Green Bay Packers, for example. All other National Football [...]
Everything is Bigger in Texas – Including Tax Refunds
A Q&A with Aaron Anderson, Director of Business Development, American Property Guard, a LERETA Company Q. Aaron let’s start off with the basics. What is Senate Bill 2? This past August, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas signed legislation delivering the largest property tax rebate in Texas history due to a surplus in funding at [...]
Every month, we'll be spotlighting someone from the LERETA roster. This month we're kicking it off with Heather Amick one of our Senior Client Success Managers. Get to know Heather, below! What is your role with LERETA? I foster outstanding relationships with my clients and help them navigate the complexities [...]
Is a “Perfect Storm” Brewing for Escrow Accounts?
(Part 1 of 2)
By Jonnine Eras, SVP, Senior Tax Operations Manager Unexpected increases in escrow accounts are one of the major reasons why borrowers contact servicer call centers. Resolving these calls often take time and require a fair amount of explaining to help homeowners understand why their monthly payment is going up. Over the next few years, however, [...]
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7 Signs it’s Time to Switch Your Real Estate Tax Monitoring and Escrow Processing Vendor
If you’ve been with your real estate tax service vendor for a while, switching vendors is likely not top of mind. However, there are times when it makes sense to evaluate your current services and explore other available options. Here are some signs that it might be time to switch. How quick is [...]
Flood Risk and Insurance: Helping Homeowners Wade Through the Details
By Elly Leonida, FVP Operations Manager Floods are the most common natural disaster in the U.S. In fact, 90% of all natural disasters involve some type of flooding. As a result, floods cause more property damage and loss of life than any other natural hazard. And yet, American homeowners are typically confused when it [...]
LERETA’s Legislative Updates 2023 Q3
Legislative Updates By Staci Hardy, VP Internal Audit & QC Manager LERETA's compliance team regularly monitors and tracks statewide property tax legislation that impacts tax service for our customers. This quarter we are including details on introduced legislation and the progression of seven new bills that we are following. None of these will have any [...]
Tips to Help Servicers Beat the Q4 Tax Crunch
By Jim Micali, COO Wise Ben Franklin said, “Nothing is certain except death and taxes.” If good ole Ben were alive today, he might amend that and say, “Nothing is certain except death, taxes, and the fact that a significant percentage of property taxes will be due at the end of each year, creating [...]
LERETA’s Legislative Updates 2023 Q1/Q2
Legislative Updates By Staci Hardy, VP Internal Audit & QC Manager LERETA's compliance team regularly monitors and tracks statewide property tax legislation that impacts tax service for our customers. This quarter we are including details on introduced legislation and the progression of seven new bills that we are following. None of these will have [...]
In Calculating Staffing Needs, Don’t Overlook the Massive Volume Shifts in ‘20 and ‘21
The sharp slowdown in new originations has resulted in significant downsizing for many lenders, with reductions occurring across the organization, including servicing as well as loan origination. But as executives look at the forecast for lower volumes of new loans coming in the door, they also need to consider how much servicing volume was [...]
LERETA’s Legislative Updates 2022 Q4
Legislative Updates By Staci Hardy, VP Internal Audit & QC Manager LERETA's compliance team regularly monitors and tracks statewide property tax legislation that impacts tax service for our customers. This quarter we are including details on introduced legislation and the progression of nine bills that we are following. None of these will have any impact [...]
Is Your Tax Vendor Flexible? A Lesson in the Basics of Tax Yoga
By Tiffany Keohane, Client Implementation Manager & Susan Portnoy, SVP Product and Enterprise Operations It may sound like a “stretch,” but some of the basic principles of yoga offer a surprisingly relevant checklist of best practices to look for when assessing a tax servicer – practices that will pay off [...]
Managing Special-Lien Tax Risk Isn’t Easy: Three Questions for Tax Servicers to Ensure Specialty Liens Don’t Cause Special Problems
By Pat Hedges, SVP Senior Tax Operations Manager Typically, it’s not property taxes – which are most often escrowed and included with monthly mortgage payments – that pose the biggest headaches for lenders and servicers, but rather special-lien tax assessments that can be hard to identify and even harder to [...]
Tax Hikes: The Lull Before the Storm
By Jonnine Eras, Senior Vice President, Senior Tax Operations Manager Tax assessments lag home price appreciation (HPA), but eventually they result in tax hikes, unpleasant surprises for homeowners and more work for servicers. Given the dramatic gains in HPA over the last two years, larger tax bills for many [...]
The Customer Connection
By Kelly Hebert, First Vice President, Sales Operations & Marketing How many times have you heard the phrase, “We have great customer service?” What does this mean exactly? Is there a proven formula that shows empathy + smiling through the phone + knowledge = happy customers? I’m sure a Silicon [...]
Understanding What Can’t Be Reversed in a Reverse Mortgage
By Mike Whiting, Senior Vice President As baby boomers age – with an increasing number saying they want to age at home – and home appreciation continues to bolster home equity values, experts predict a growing interest in reverse mortgages. According to a new Freddie Mac survey, 66% of [...]
Flood Certifications: Striking the Right Balance Between Automation and Exception Handling
By Elly Leonida, FVP Operations Manager Over the last decade, mortgage lenders have seen dramatic changes in how loans are approved, processed and closed with technology and automation improving speed, accuracy and the customer experience. The improvements have permeated all aspects of the mortgage life cycle, including the flood [...]