Nationwide Title Clearing Expedites Retrieval Process.

PALM HARBOR, FL -- With mortgage lending volume starting to taper off from its recent highs, lenders are desperately seeking ways to trim costs and make their operations more productive.

Nationwide Title Clearing recently rolled out a service designed to help make lien release, assignment and document retrieval processes a little less painful for lenders.

Jim Stewart, president of Nationwide Title Clearing, said that the Express Retrieval service, which the company officially rolled out in April, has been in development for quite some time. Express Retrieval allows mortgage lenders to get copies of recorded documents and title policies with faster turnaround time than in the past. It also includes improved website reporting and images of documents.

"It allows us to really decrease the amount of time it takes to retrieve recorded documents and title policies while also decreasing the cost of doing it," Mr. Stewart told MSN. "This is really critical when the bottom line is leaner than it used to be."

In addition, NTC's clients face increased pressure from investors to send documents to them, with some investors threatening financial repercussions if documents are not sent on time. That in part reflects heightened regulatory scrutiny of the mortgage industry. Recently enacted laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley and Gramm-Leach-Bliley have added to the data security requirements and information requirements imposed upon lenders, increasing their compliance burden.

When a lender or servicer needs to obtain a clerk-certified copy of a document, it is usually because they are very close to or have exceeded the allowable investor timeframe, so turnaround time is a key issue for NTC's clients, Mr. Stewart said.

NTC has established a national network of title abstractors who can interface with recording officials in each recording jurisdiction in the country - some 3,700 counties in all - each of which has different rules and procedures ...