What Is The Mortgage Process?

The following information is a guide designed to assist you in understanding how the mortgage process works from the time of the mortgage application through the approval stage to ultimately closing your loan.

Initial Application Signing
Once you have met with your West Park Mortgage loan officer, completed the application, and provided the required documentation, the process beings.

Loan Processing
Your loan officer will now turn your application over to our loan processing department, where it will be assigned to a processor who will oversee your loan from start to finish. Your assigned processor will be responsible for confirming all of the information on your application; this will depend on the type of loan you are applying for.

The Processor Must:
a. Order an appraisal of your property, which lets us know the property’s true market value.
b. Verify information with your employer, landlord, banks and brokerage houses.
c. Verify your credit and document any blemishes which may appear.
d. Gather all pertinent documentation to substantiate any findings.

During the required processing stage, additional information and/or concerns may be disclosed which you are not even aware of. The processor then must clarify/verify any of these items. Your cooperation throughout the process is of the utmost importance.

Keeping In Touch
Your processor will stay in contact with you either by mail, fax, or phone. However, as a member of this mortgage team, you are encouraged to stay in close contact with your processor. If you have any questions, don’t wait for the processor to call you; please call them. In this regard, your loan officer always remains ready to assist you as well. However, the loan officer will not know the day-to-day details of your loan the way your processor will. For this reason, we suggest that you contact your processor first.

Loan Submission To Underwriting
Upon completion of the processing stage, your file is then submitted to underwriting for approval or denial. Your processor still remains your primary contact during this stage. Depending upon market conditions, underwriting may take anywhere from 48 hours to seven days for certain unique mortgage programs. Your processor will keep you advised of just where your file stands in underwriting as best they can.

Additional Conditions
Once your file is approved however, the process is only half-complete. In many cases after an approval is issued, there are conditions which the underwriter will still require. You will be provided a full written approval, detailing any conditions that must be satisfied.

You must sign and return your loan commitment as soon as possible. Your processor can satisfy many of the outstanding conditions with the documentation that you already provided. However, any conditions which you must satisfy should be taken care of as soon as possible. We will guide you throughout the process.

These outstanding conditions must then be resubmitted to underwriting for clearance (The underwriters will only review all conditions at one time, they will not review conditions one at a time). As you can see, it is imperative that all conditions be submitted as quickly as possible. Even one missing condition can delay a closing. Once all outstanding conditions are submitted to underwriting it generally takes 36 hours to have your file cleared to the closing department.

Other Necessary Items
At this stage, your Attorney or Title Company should have already forwarded all the title work to your processor. The Title Work refers to the title binder, which is issued by the title insurer and includes: the chain of title, all liens, a tax and municipal lien search, a judgment search, a closing protection letter, wiring instructions, copies of the filed notices of settlement, copy of proposed affidavit of title and survey or survey affidavit of no change.

Be Your Own Team Leader
As you can see, there are many steps to get from application to closing. By participating and being your own team leader, you can make sure of the following:

a. You have provided both your loan officer and processor with the requested documents in a timely fashion.
b. Your Attorney or Title Company has completed your title work in a timely fashion.
c. Your Insurance Agent has contacted your processor and provided the homeowner’s insurance.
d. Your Realtor has provided any necessary documents and obtained any necessary inspections.