National Closing Center

Posts Tagged ‘short sale tips’

Collecting all the documents from a seller and uploading them into our web-based platform is agent’s responsibility. Most likely, you, the agent, live in roughly the same area as the seller. You have to meet the seller at least once in order to have the Listing Agreement, Sales Contract, and several other important documents signed by him or her. Thus we believe it only makes sense that you would pick up the rest of the documents (like hardship letter, financial statements, mortgage info), and upload them into our web based platform.

Essentially, today’s tip for you is to PAY ATTENTION to the docs before you upload them.

Make sure:
– you check whether all required signatures are there;
–you check whether seller’s and buyer’s names are spelled correctly;
–you avoid unnecessary abbreviations; use names or titles (Seller, Buyer) instead;
–all pages are there and nothing is missing;
–you avoid lengthy generic .pdf documents.

Instead of combining all financials into one multi-page file, naming it Finacials.pdf and uploading in into Other Documents section, separate the file into multiple documents. This way, you will have Hardship_Letter.pdf, PayStubs.pdf, 1stMortgage.pdf and so on. Obviously, you don’t have to name the files in exactly same manner as in this example, as long as you name them ACCURATELY and upload them as separate documents into appropriate sections. If you can’t find a good fit for your document, upload it into Other Documents section.
WHY all of that is important? SAVING TIME and CLOSING faster.

If you need to re-uplaod the docs and contact the seller over and over again, you are wasting your time and delaying the short sale process.

Our recommended time to upload all the documents into the platform from the moment you have a processor assigned is 5 business days. If you can do it faster, excellent; if you take more time, it’s fine, but please bear in mind that a short sale package will be submitted to the bank later and actual processing time is going to be longer.

We are very SERIOUS about sending a complete package to a lender from the get-go. Our processors are instructed not to send the package if something is missing or incorrect. Thus, you will be requested to upload all the docs or the process is going to be stalled.

Check out the screenshot below and see how different financials are separated in files and uploaded into different sections of the platform.

Once you have converted your lead into a short sale file, don’t forget to consult a very important document—Required Document List from Listing Agent. It’s a pdf file located in Document Forms>National Closing Forms. It lists all documents that your processors needs in order to submit a short sale package to a lender. The sooner you provide these documents, the faster you will see a file status change from “Collecting SS documents” to “Submitted to Lender.”

We hate delays as much as you do… so let’s avoid them when possible.

We recommend a self-imposed 5-day deadline to finish collecting documents. In most cases, 5 days should be enough to get the documents signed by the borrower and upload them into the platform.

If you are located in Illinois, don’t forget to download Attorney Engagement Letter, have the borrower sign it and upload it back into the platform.

Want the process to go even faster? Make sure you upload the documents exactly where they belong. If not sure where a particular document goes, upload it to Other Documents section.

If you’re scanning documents and then uploading pdfs, please create a separate pdf for a different document. For instance, instead of naming a file TaxReturns.pdf and including tax returns and pay stubs, make two separate pdf files and name them Tax2010.pdf and PayStubs.pdf respectively.

Check out the screenshot below for the location of the above-mentioned pdfs.