Posts Tagged ‘authorization to release’

Authorization to Release: Working with Loss Mitigation

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

MN-Minnesota-short-sale


This article is written by Mario who has experience doing mn short sale homes

Yes you are right about making sure you have the authorization letter

in and that you are polite with the mitigators. Sometimes its as simple

as making sure they recieve the letter because these lenders swap

numbers around like shoes and there is no way to know if you got it to the

right people. Give you an idea of the process to ensure you are not

doing anything wrong and then if it them being dumb how to get some reply.

1) make sure the lender you are working with is worth working with.

Some people may disagree but i know the lenders I will and will not work

with because some lenders are just not worth dealing with. The only way

you will learn this is by doing enough deals to learn their systems. I

will tell you the main ones i will not touch. Wells & ASC which is a

servicer of Wells’ risky paper. I recently had a house with a 410k

mortgage with wells and i was only looking for a 30k discount (nothing!) and

they let it ride all through redemption and took it back. there was

absolutely nothing else i could do. So make sure the lender you are

working with is worth it.

2) Contact the lender at the before you do anything and ask where to

send the Auth Letter and see if they will send you a “short sale package”

(sometimes referred to as a workout package). This is simply a check

list of what is needed and where to send it when you have it. sometimes

they will send a borrower financial statement that the borrower needs

to fill out to tell the bank what the borrowers finances are looking

like. Sometimes they will not even give you that until you send the Auth

letter and in that case fax the letter over and 48 hours later call in

and request it. This simple step can make a big difference. Sometimes i

get a little cocky and figure i have done it so many times that i know

what they need… and every time i end up holding the deal up because

they changed the needed docs and it puts me back in my place. With this

also make sure that you give them EVERYTHING they want at the same

time. do not send 1 thing in at a time and to make it idiot proof for these

people put it in the order that they have it written on their

checklist and make sure it is obvious what each thing is. Include acct numbers

on top of EVERY page. These people dont care and they will not take the

time to look for things. On cover sheet make an index of what is

included in the packet and the order they are in. Some lenders time stamp

you and if you request the shortsale pack and take too long to get the

requested info in they will close the file. Usually if you send most of

things in and miss something but they dont call you to tell you. There

is a good chance this is y you are not getting a response to your calls.

Resubmitt the FULL packet and attempt to start it over. I went 2

months one time with no response for that reason and never knew it because

no one would return my call to tell me. also on the cover sheet Write in

big letters “URGENT - FULL SHORT SALE PACKAGE” you know most people do

that but The word full is important because it tell the lazy people

that they have a pack that is ready to go and less work on them. if a

sheriff sale date or end of redemption is coming soon put “REDEMPTION ENDS

2/14/07!” to set a sense of urgency.

3)Make sure that when you submit your packet you followup every day

after to see if your packet has been processed. These banks are large and

it sometimes takes them a couple days just to put your packet in the

system to start the process. Each time ask if a mitigator has been

assigned to the file. The reason i say this is because the mitigators get

tons of files everyday and they easily overlook yours unless you stay on

them. You want to talk to them the second they get it on their desk. If

the say there has been someone assigned to the file then ask right away

for their name, direct number, fax, and email (depending on the bank

they may not give you that) but if you get their email… Game Over! Now

begin contacting the mitigator directly from there on out. A little

tip for you… their phone systems are all similar and after a while you

will start to learn your way around them. If you are not getting calls

returned by the assigned person start to call the loss mit number and

when they ask for the ext number dont hit anything and a lot of times it

will bring you to a random rep (sometimes it is even an option to

press extension or wait for next available rep). When someone hops on the

line explain to them that you have been attempting to contact “John” the

assigned person and he has not returned calls for a few weeks. I have

had other people take over the file and help me out and get the deal

done in a very short period of time. These mitigators take more

vacation/sick days then any other profession i have seen so far. So a rep may be

out of office for an entire week and let all their files just sit

there or i have even had a rep get transfered out of that department or

laid off and no one takes over their files. If the person that gets on the

phone is blowing you off and seems to busy to deal with your file then

politely tell them that you know they are very busy and you dont want

to waste their time and to put you through to a supervisor. most likely

they will just to get you out of their hair. When they do this… it’s

like getting the deal on a silver platter because now when the

supervisor puts u with a new rep, you can always go back to them and tattle on

the rep if they are not doing a good job and the supervisor will put

some fire under their but and sometimes take over the file themselves.

If you still have no luck, call customer service number and ask what

the mailing address for Loss mit is and mail them the full package with a

cover letter explaining how it has been impossible to get in contact

with them. Send the letter priority so you can see when it was recieved.

Also send Faxes with the same letter to thier main fax line addressed

to Loss mit supervisor. Do that 5 times a day and it will eventually

annoy someone handling the faxes enough to do something about it.

Hope this stuff helps. Just make sure you submit your stuff right

because 99% of the time it is our fault they cant move forward, do to our

laziness!

Ron did a longer more detailed article at this link for minnesota short sale

Related Posts on This Topic