It is hard to believe that I will celebrate my 16th year with NTC this year. It was June 2, 2007, when I became part of the NTC family. Since then, I have accomplished some amazing things both personally and professionally. My greatest professional achievement? I would have to say developing the PerfectDocs solution with the talented team at NTC. Helping clients is definitely my passion, and being part of PerfectDocs has allowed me to help innovate how we help clients. Build it and they will come, they said. They were right!
When the initiative to build a product for clients to process their own assignments and releases was begun, I thought about what clients already loved about our service: 85% e-record coverage (and as high as 90% at times), a document review and sign module that enables best practices for execution, the integration of MERS data that supports compliance and ensures quality and the state and county requirements library that delivers a <1% reject rate. When I wondered how I could uniquely contribute, I realized that I and my peers represent the most important people not in the room – our clients. I was the ear and voice of my clients, which is how the concept of “Share the Work” was born.
Similar products had been available for decades. We knew we had to build something even better. We listened to our clients that voiced that they wanted the same engine that drove NTC to be the premier service provider in this space. To make it better than the rest, it needed to give them the ability to still outsource the pieces of the process that made sense. Hence, “Share the Work.”
This unique feature was still second to benefiting from a real-time state and county requirements feature that includes intuitive data entry, a library of compliant forms and current recording fees. Not having to schedule or wait for changes remains the favorite feature among clients today. Since we rely on the same engine driving the delivery of hundreds of thousands of documents per month for all of NTC’s clients, this is also our number one priority.
Why is this so important? The assignment and release process still requires time-consuming and costly paper processes. Over 90% of documents are recorded electronically, but there are still a few that need to be sent to the county on paper along with an actual recording fee payment. This issue is compounded by the fact that the document still needs to be tracked, confirmed recorded, received back and then delivered to the custodian, investor or borrower. Meeting the needs of all parties requires considerable resources. PerfectDocs also relies on features that are better because they are part of the platform and do not require outside tracking or logging out to accomplish the task elsewhere. Perfect examples of this are the eRecording of documents, ordering research for document exceptions, validating and correcting any chain of title issues and benefiting from an efficient and low-cost trustee network.
In PerfectDocs, orders seamlessly move in and out of these additional services and always reflect the true status, giving the client a complete system of record for audit purposes. “Share the Work” became a main focus for PerfectDocs development, and we are so glad it did. A year after its launch came the pandemic when its features were tested with great results. NTC supported clients with any piece of the process that could not be supported by their work-from-home environment, including fail-over of all orders out of PerfectDocs to NTC’s Full Service with a flip of the switch.
As I plan for my 30th MBA Servicing Conference, I recall that the first client we onboarded onto PerfectDocs said that PerfectDocs was certainly the best of all systems out there. As he shared this with his peers, I was never prouder.
About the Author
Debbie Lastoria
Debbie Lastoria is Vice President of National Sales for NTC, a Covius Solution. With over 35 years of experience in the mortgage industry, she has been a key contributor to NTC’s service expansion and company growth. Her overall success is attributed to the long lasting relationships established in the industry as an essential and trusted consultant where her experience, knowledge, strategic and creative thinking continues to offer solutions in this ever changing industry. Since at NTC, she earned the title of Housing Wire’s ‘Women of Influence’, was named a “Leading Lady’ in the Report’s Women in Housing magazine and was awarded a Bronze for ‘Woman of the Year’ in Sales by the Stevie Awards.
