MERS® Compliance

Optimal Mortgage Services offers a solution to your MERS® compliance needs. Our proprietary software SMART, provides the tools needed to perform all reviews required.

MERS® Rules of Membership and Quality Assurance guidelines mandate that any General member who services 1,000 or more loans, engage an independent third party to review its processes and acknowledge the Annual Report. All General members are to perform data reconciliations at the required intervals. Lite members are to perform a self-check to ensure proper registration and accurate loan documents.

SMART allows you to reconcile the MERS® data to your servicing data and track any deficiencies until corrected. Detailed lists of mismatched fields are provided in addition to a scorecard to monitor your progress.

Loans are registered with the data contained in the loan documents. The origination documents must comply with MERS® standards and contain language to conform to the guidelines.

SMART provides the means to document the three way review and generate a monthly report of the results.

SMART will provide you with the output files in the proper format in the event that MERS® requires a MERS® Data Review. Our representatives provide guidance throughout the process.

As an independent provider, our reporting is a high level professional analysis as we are an independent provider and not a party to the actual loan transaction.

An Optimal Mortgage Services representative will provide support throughout the year to ensure compliance. MERS® changes in procedure are communicated and we will assist in any area needed.

Optimal Mortgage Services provides reviews, reconciliations and Biennial output files. Our representatives assist you throughout the year to ensure maximum compliance with your MERS® QA Plan. Contact an Optimal Mortgage Services representative to assist you with your MERS® compliance needs.

Reconciliation

MERS® Quality Assurance guidelines require that servicers must reconcile certain fields in the MERS® System to your system of record for all active loans at the required frequency. The required intervals are:

  • Monthly, if you service 1,000 or more active registered loans
  • Quarterly, if you service under 1,000 active registered loans

You must ensure all corrections are complete within 30 calendar days of discovery.

Optimal Mortgage Services is a MERS® Patron Member and offers a variety of services to ensure your MERS® compliance. Our specialized representatives will work with you throughout the year to optimize your compliance with the MERS® Rules of Membership and Quality Assurance Guidelines. We will identify trends to assist you in procedural changes to ensure proper data submission.

In the event that your servicer or sub-servicer provides reconciliation services, Optimal Mortgage Services can provide validation of that process as part of your vendor management program.

Annual Report

MERS® General Members are required to submit an Annual Report to MERS®. Those General Members who service 1,000 or more loans are required to have a Third Party Review and signature. Those General Members who service less than 1,000 loans may use an internal reviewer that is not affiliated with the MERS® function in your organization, or may use an external, third party reviewer.

Optimal Mortgage Services is a MERS® Patron Member and offers a variety of services to ensure your MERS® compliance. Our specialized representatives will work with you throughout the year to optimize your compliance with the MERS® Rules of Membership and Quality Assurance Guidelines.

Optimal Mortgage Services’ proprietary software, SMART, provides the ability to reconcile MERS® and Servicer’s data and capture the results of the document audit.

Most importantly, our team will:

  • Guide you through the MERS® process
  • Provide you with MERS® updates
  • Coach you throughout the process to ensure optimal compliance
  • Provide reconciliation services
  • Provide document reviews with results in a concise management report

Our representatives will cover all aspects of the MERS® process. It is our goal to ensure submission of your MERS® Annual Report with no exceptions.

Team up with Optimal Mortgage Services! We visit the Annual Report frequently to ensure:

  • Member has written internal procedures in place designed to provide reasonable assurance that it has submitted to MERSCORP Holdings, Inc. data for all MERS® System required and conditional reporting fields.
  • Member has conducted an internal system-to-system reconciliation for all MERS® System required and conditional reporting fields for each required reconciliation interval based on your organization’s portfolio requirements.
  • Required and conditional fields entered on the MERS® System on behalf of the Member match those values in Member’s system of record, and any discrepancies and remediation activities necessary to align the data on the two systems are tracked and monitored on aging reports until cleared.
  • Member has written internal procedures in place designed to provide reasonable assurance that it is managing all reject/warning reports associated with registrations, transfers, and status updates on open-item aging reports.
  • Member has written internal procedures in place designed to provide reasonable assurance of compliance with the requirements specified in the MERS® System Rules of Membership and MERS® System Procedures Manual applicable to Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. Signing Officers.
  • Member has monitored its performance against its Quality Assurance Plan and has reviewed the plan at least annually for effectiveness and has revised and resubmitted an updated plan as necessary.

MERS® Data Review

MERSCORP Holdings may selected your organization for a data review because you are currently a Servicer and/or Sub-servicer for MERS® Loans. This is a system-to-system comparison of “active” MIN data from the MERS® System to your System of Record.

Optimal Mortgage Services’ SMART software will provide you with the tab delimited text files in the proper format in the event that MERS® requires a MERS® Data Review. An Optimal Mortgage Services representative will assist you throughout the data review to ensure that all required and conditional data fields, loan status and rights holder interests reflected on the MERS® System match the your system of record.

In the event that you utilize more than one servicing system or sub-servicer, SMART can combine the data and generate one set of tab delimited text files for submission to MERSCORP Holdings.

We recognize that notification of an upcoming MERS® Data Review can be overwhelming. Optimal Mortgage Services provides you with our expertise to prepare you for this upcoming event. We assist in identifying patterns and methods of correcting mismatched data.

Our clients are provided with a scorecard during their routine reconciliation process which is much like the one generated during the MERS® Data Review. Being prepared in advance will eliminate panic during the data review process.

Lite Member

MERS® Lite Members are lenders that have signed a MERS® System Member Agreement solely for the purpose to sell loans with MERS® as the Mortgagee and Nominee for the lender on the Security Instrument to other MERS® System Members. Lite Members sell all loans “servicing-released” within 120 days of the Note Date.

MERS® Rules of Membership and Quality Assurance guidelines mandate that Lite Members perform a "self-check" to ensure proper registration and accurate loan documents. Optimal Mortgage Services’ experienced staff will perform these reviews and provide monthly reports utilizing our SMART software. Data and document integrity is key to maintaining your investor relationships.

General Member

MERS® General Members typically service loans. MERS® Rules of Membership and Quality Assurance guidelines mandate that any General member who services 1,000 or more loans, engage an independent third party to review its processes and acknowledge the Annual Report.

QA Plan

All Members that perform transactions on the MERS® System are required to have a current MERS® System Quality Assurance (“QA”) Plan. MERSCORP Holdings, Inc. expects your organization to monitor its performance against its current QA Plan, and to review its QA Plan at least annually for accuracy and effectiveness.

Optimal Mortgage Services can design your internal MERS® policies as an addition to your Quality Assurance Plan.