Client Bulletin: October 28, 2024
Thank You For a Wonderful Evening in Denver
Thank you to all who joined us on Sunday, Oct. 27 for a wonderful evening at the renowned History Colorado Center. We are honored to have had the chance to welcome you, and we hope you enjoyed your time with us. On behalf of everyone at Cenlar, allow us to share how great it was to be able to catch up with you in person. Best wishes for a great MBA conference!
Supporting Client Needs with Disaster Dashboard Enhancements
We have added several enhancements to our disaster dashboard on CenAccess to provide you with more insights and information on loans that are in FEMA Declared Disaster zones.
New functionality includes the ability to:
- Select multiple Natural Disasters options in the filters on the DASH tab
- Select impacted state as a filter on the DASH tab
- View Disaster letter count to the homeowner outreach section in the DASH tab.
We have made these changes to more easily support your needs for additional data points and filtering options. These additional data points allow for you to see a single snapshot of loans in your portfolio impacted by natural disasters, as well as drill down on specific data points for individual disasters.
The additional data points provide a more complete picture of loans that have potential to be impacted or have been impacted. The enhancement to the filters allows you to quickly toggle between different disasters and see the data at the individual disaster level, across multiple states and/or across multiple disasters.
Additionally, because Helene and Milton occurred so close together, we have created special standalone dashboards for each of these disasters combining all states impacted.
These special dashboards will be sent via SFTP beginning on Monday, Oct. 28 and will not be posted on CenAccess. Please note, the Disaster Dashboard on CenAccess will also include Helene and Milton information but will be by individual state impacted.
Important Dates to Know for 1098s
As the end of 2024 fast approaches, we are hard at work making sure tax season goes seamlessly for you and your homeowners.
Client Year-End Deadlines and Dates
Please make note of the following important deadlines and dates for clients:
- The deadline for clients to make pre-year-end corrections to homeowner 1098s is Friday, Dec. 13. If you need to submit corrections, please send the request through CCM. (General Servicing/Year End/Bulk 1098 Corrections/Pre-Year End Correction).
- Correction Requests received after Dec. 13 will be subject to a cost of $15 per loan, and we cannot guarantee they will be completed prior to Dec. 31.
- All loans closed in 2024 must be boarded by Monday, Jan. 6, 2025.
Our 1098 reports for 2024 will be available to share with clients by Feb. 15, 2025.
Homeowner 1098 Communication Campaign
Starting on Dec. 6, our IVR will be updated with generic information about 1098s. This IVR content will periodically be refreshed with updates for homeowners as 1098s are prepared and delivered.
Your homeowners will begin receiving emails from us on Dec. 18 to proactively inform them of what to expect come tax season. The first of these messages lets homeowners know that their 1098 will be coming soon.
We will begin posting 1098s on CenNet on Jan. 8, 2025, for all homeowners who have enrolled in paperless. These homeowners will receive an email from us with a link to their 1098 as soon as it is available to access. We will also post a link on the CenNet landing page that will bring homeowners directly to their 1098s. Please note that homeowners who have enrolled in paperless will not receive a paper copy of their 1098; they will only receive their 1098 online.
Paper 1098s will be mailed to all homeowners who have not elected to go paperless between Jan. 10 and Jan. 31, 2025.
Please reach out to your client manager with any questions.
CISO Jason Shockey to Speak at MBA Annual
Cenlar CISO Jason Shockey will feature as a cybersecurity expert tomorrow, October 29 at the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Annual Conference in Denver during the panel “Protect Your Company from Evolving Cybersecurity Risk.”
Shockey, along with other panelists, will share the latest intel on how they worked to mitigate risk and protect their companies, offering firsthand knowledge and the strategies they’ve used to safeguard operations.
If you are at the MBA, you can find Shockey’s session at 1:30 p.m. in Exhibit Hall F, THE HUB EXPO.
Cenlar Completes Annual Disaster Recovery Exercise Program
Cenlar maintains an enterprise-wide Disaster Recovery Exercise Program for resiliency planning and disaster recovery from various scenarios.
As part of the ongoing program, which speaks to the importance Cenlar places on data protection, Cenlar completed disaster recovery exercises for internal teams and with select client partners in mid-October.
Each year, Cenlar matures the disaster recovery exercise, which takes hundreds of hours of preparation time, in scope and objectives to ensure we achieve program requirements. In addition, Cenlar has doubled the number of clients participating in the exercise.
“We recognize the importance of protecting our employees and clients through high performing business resiliency and disaster recovery management,” said Director of Business Resiliency Management Ken Brock. “The plan contains strategies to minimize the effects of a disaster, so Cenlar can continue to operate or quickly resume key operations.”
Happy Veterans Day
Cenlar is open for business to service our clients and homeowners on Veterans Day, Monday, November 11.
However, our Cash Operations Department will be closed in alignment with the Federal Reserve Bank. With the Fed as well as U.S. Post Office closures that day, there will be no mail service nor inbound or outbound wires, ACH or check negotiations. These and all other cash operations functions will resume on Tuesday, November 12.
Additionally, servicing reporting will not be delivered on Monday. Overnight extracts will not occur on Monday night/Tuesday morning.
Please reach out to your client manager with any questions.