We would like to clear something up. 

For decades, mortgage lenders have turned to document preparation or more commonly known as “doc prep” companies, to make sure all the proper disclosures and paperwork are assembled when originating and closing mortgage loans. Today, though, lenders need much more than a doc prep provider if they’re serious about lowering costs and improving the borrower experience.

If your company is using a traditional doc prep provider, you may want to ask yourself these three questions before you keep wasting more time and money:

1. Does your doc prep vendor create SMARTDocs^®?

We all know that doc prep companies are responsible for making sure loans have the proper documentation before closing. As new technologies emerged, doc prep companies have transitioned from using paper documents to electronic documents, which have helped speed up the mortgage transaction.

Yet, most doc prep companies don’t create documents using Category 1 SMARTDocs, which are embedded with data and can be read and verified by machine with no human interaction. Instead, they’re still using PDFs that are merely electronic versions of paper documents. Before a borrower can sign them, signature tags often need to be added to PDFs, which takes extra time, and carries additional risk. Further, to determine if the information on the documents is accurate, they must be reviewed by hand or scanned though optical character recognition (OCR) technology, or both, and neither method will ensure there are no errors.

At SigniaDocuments, we create entire doc packages, not just the note, using Category 1 SMARTDocs. Our documents never have to be tagged for the borrower’s signature and can be verified many times faster than using manual processes or OCR. And they guarantee that all information in a loan file can be read with 100% accuracy.

So the question is, why would you use pdfs when you can use SMARTDocs?

2. Do they provide due diligence? 

Most doc prep providers claim that they’ll verify that a loan file has all the correct documents and that the information on them is correct. However, they don’t provide true due diligence reviews, which means that lenders must either do their own due diligence in-house or find another company to perform due diligence on their loans.

SigniaDocuments is unique among other technology providers because its parent company, Evolve Mortgage Services, is a due diligence provider that has reviewed more than $40 billion in loans since inception. This means that lenders don’t need different providers for documents and due diligence, we are a single source solution.

That is a great thing, because our due diligence reviews are constantly finding errors that were missed by doc prep companies that guarantee their docs are accurate, including inconsistent borrower and property information and misplaced signature tags.

3. Do they produce eMortgages?

A growing number of doc prep and mortgage document providers also market themselves as eMortgage providers and claim to be able to produce a completely digital mortgage process. The reality, however, is they rely on partners to do so instead of providing all the technologies and services that lenders need for eMortgages. They also don’t provide a full library of SMARTDocs encompassing every type of document found in loan files.

SigniaDocuments, on the other hand, enables lenders to deliver a completely digital, end-to-end mortgage process. That’s because we can create SMARTDocs for every document in a loan file—plus we offer a full array of proprietary eSign, eClosing, eDelivery, MERS eRegistry, eVault, and remote online notarization (RON) services. Basically, everything lenders need to create an eMortgage process can be found right here in a single integration.

So, while the word “documents” is part of our name, it’s not all we do—not by a long shot. If you’re tired of wasting money, time and doing doc prep and mortgage processess the old way, and want to see how a complete eMortgage strategy can completely transform your business, just call 877-7SIGNIA or email us at Info@SigniaDocs.com.