Welcome TRID

Tomorrow is D Day for implementation of the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure Rule (“TRID”).  As banks and others in the mortgage industry continue their final preparations to implement wholesale changes to their disclosures and closing practices as required by TRID, trade groups supporting the industry continue to request a formal hold harmless period following the Rule’s implementation.  While the CFPB and OCC politely have declined to adopt a formal hold harmless period, they have continued to offer some assurances to the industry that they will evaluate examinees based upon their “good faith efforts to comply with the Rule’s requirements in a timely manner.”   In a recent letter to the American Bankers Association and other interested trade groups, the CFPB and OCC reiterated that during initial examinations for compliance with TRID, examiners will “evaluate an institution’s compliance management system and overall efforts to come into compliance, recognizing the scope and scale of changes necessary for each supervised institution to achieve effective compliance.”  Specifically, the initial focus of examinations will take into account: “the institution’s implementation plan, including actions taken to update policies, procedures, and processes; its training of appropriate staff and, it handling of early technical problems or other implementation challenges.”  Meanwhile, formal efforts to extend an official hold harmless date continue in Congress and are expected to come to a vote by the House within the next week.

So what does this mean as we head towards tomorrow’s implementation of TRID? Banks and other affected verticals should already have in place their TRID compliance management systems, completed training of their affected staff, and completed discussions about the transition to TRID with their vendors (including brokers and closing attorneys).  The challenge moving forward is to trouble shoot for issues with implementation and continually evaluate the effectiveness of the entity's TRID compliance management system and revise the same as needed.