Through our various audit offerings, Quest Advisors strives to keep you in good standing with investors and regulators, so you can concentrate on your organization’s lending goals.
- MERS System Quality Assurance Standards Audits
When conducting an Annual Report of MERS® System Quality Assurance Standards Compliance Audit, QUEST’s audit involves the following areas:
- QUEST reviews CLIENT procedures to reasonably determine written procedures are in place, and have been submitted to MERSCORP, for all MERS® required and conditional reporting fields, and actions.
- Determine that CLIENT has written procedures in place designed to provide reasonable assurance of compliance with the Rules and Procedures for the CLIENT’s MERS® Signing Officers.
- QUEST determines that the CLIENT’s MERS® Signing Officers are certified and have renewed their certification timely as required in October of the current year.
- QUEST will determine that CLIENT has procedures in place to provide reasonable assurance that the CLIENT has reviewed daily capture of all reject/warning reports associated with registrations, transfers, and status updates on open-item aging reports.
- QUEST determines if CLIENT data reconciliations were completed at the required frequency, based on the number of MINs the CLIENT has in their system on March 31st of the current year, and determines if the data reconciliations cover all MERS® required and conditional reporting fields.
- Based on review of the data reconciliations completed during the year, and QUEST’s review observations, obtain reasonable assurance that required and conditional fields entered on the MERS® System match the values in the CLIENT’s internal system. QUEST will reasonably determine that discrepancies and corrective remediation actions have been taken to align the CLENT’s system with the MERS® system, which had been tracked and monitored on aging reports until cleared; and, that the CLIENT performed reasonable root cause analysis and documented an action plan to remediate the mismatch and root cause issue within thirty (30) calendar days.
- QUEST’s review will determine if the CLIENT has monitored its actual performance against the CLIENT’s Quality Assurance Plan and if the CLIENT has reviewed the plan for completeness and effectiveness at least annually and revised the plan if necessary.
- QUEST will determine if there are any exceptions to the above quality assurance standards identified during the audit, and confirm any noted exceptions, resolution and/or suggested corrective action plans as appropriate, which will be referenced and included in the Annual Report.
- QUEST will sign the Annual Report submitted to MERSCORP as the CLIENT’s External Reviewer that conducted the Annual Report of MERS® System Quality Assurance Standards Compliance Audit.
- Servicing Audits
Servicing or loan administration quality control audits satisfy FHA, HUD, Ginnie Mae and Fannie/Freddie Mac requirements and can be scheduled monthly or quarterly depending upon need. These audits review the following, but are not limited to:
- Servicing procedures
- Operations
- Collections
- Loss mitigation
- Cash processing
- Escrow handling/escrow analysis, tax and insurance payments
- Loan file security areas
- HMDA Audits/Reviews
The scope of the review/audit will be developed to meet the specific needs of the review/audit being accomplished, considering CLIENT guidelines and/regulatory requirements as appropriate. The review/audit will typically be designed to reasonably establish the accuracy of the HMDA data being collected and submitted on the CLIENT’s LAR. QUEST can review the HMDA data being submitted on the year-end LAR; or, if desired by the CLIENT, QUEST can conduct its reviews monthly or quarterly to minimize the number of errors needing correction at the end of the year prior to required LAR submission.
- Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Advisory and Audits
The scope of the review/audit will be developed to meet the specific needs of the review/audit being accomplished, considering CLIENT guidelines and/regulatory requirements as appropriate. The review/audit will typically be designed to reasonably determine and evaluate the CLIENT’s AML training programs for employees, the CLIENT’s AML procedures and controls, and its reporting of Suspicious Activity noted. The AML review/audit covers loan origination/operations, closing, loan delivery, and loan servicing administration.
