Quandis Inc., a provider of default management technology solutions, has announced that it has launched a service that runs searches on active military personnel to avoid compliance issues in the foreclosure process. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) of 2003 dictates that servicers and foreclosure attorneys must follow certain processes before foreclosing on an active person in the United States military.
Under the SCRA, homes with mortgage originations that pre-date a military member’s entry into active duty cannot be foreclosed on during that active duty or within nine months after release from active-duty without a court order. The SCRA protects and covers all active duty military service members, reservists and members of the National Guard. Quandis' military search service is designed for use by servicers, banks, foreclosure attorneys, trustees and various outsourced networks.
“There are borrowers that have been called upon to serve our country who often face financial hardships after they are deployed,” said Scott Stoddard, chief executive officer of Quandis Inc. “The problem is that organizations are challenged with verifying that a delinquent borrower is on active duty and then continually monitoring status to ensure it hasn’t changed. This process starts with servicers, which if they are out of compliance with SCRA, they face stiff penalties and potential lawsuits brought by military personnel as a result of these violations.”
Quandis’ new service works by performing an automated bulk search on portfolios to identify borrowers that are active in the military, returning an official military status report provided by the U.S. Department of Defense within 24 hours. All search result data is delivered in an electronic format that imports into services’ back-office processing systems and also attorneys’ case management applications. Currently, most searches are performed manually by a servicer’s staff, which is performed one-at-a-time on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Web site, www.defense.gov, which is onerous, time consuming and risky.
