The Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO) is seeking public comment on a new set of enhanced work products designed to create a common format for closing instructions.
The 60-day public comment period runs through July 17, it said.
“Lenders and settlement agents will communicate more effectively, provide better customer service, and improve operational efficiencies through the use of consistent closing templates and underlying datasets,” said David Coleman, MISMO president.
The enhanced work products were created by the Closing Instructions Development Workgroup (DWG, which is seeking public comment on the following resources:
- Revisions to the MISMO Master Closing Instruction Template.
- Revisions to the MISMO Transactional Closing Instruction Template.
- Revisions to the MISMO Closing Instruction Implementation Guide.
- New MISMO Transactional Closing Instruction Dataset.
MISMO said the Master and Transactional Closing Instruction templates create a consistent format for closing instructions and are designed to enhance communication between lenders and settlement agents, reducing closing errors. The templates focus on the format and organization of closing instructions, rather than legal language often included in instructions.
The updates to the templates and supporting iGuide include:
- Clarified field label names to align with industry standard terms.
- Additional fields to capture data requested by the industry.
- Enhancements to the fields related to eClosings based on industry adoption.
In addition to the revised templates and iGuide, the Closing Instructions DWG created a dataset to accompany the Transactional Closing Instructions. MISMO said its Transactional Closing Instruction Template XML Mapping Specification is intended to serve as a guide for implementers in defining data requirements, for a specific integration to exchange data based on the format of the MISMO Transactional Closing Instructions and the MISMO v3.6 reference model.
The public comment period allows those who participated in the proposals at least 60 days’ notice prior to final release to review and disclose any applicable Patent Rights (as defined by MISMO's 2018 Intellectual Property Rights Policy). Disclosures and comments should be directed to [email protected].
