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Welcome From Bob Jett, General Counsel for eDocs-Express and President of Prescient Ssoftware.
Welcome to the third issue of the monthly eDocs-Express Dispatch!
We recently formed eDocs-Express® to help financial institutions in setting up and running commercial lending operations. One of the first things we decided to do was to produce this monthly newsletter, the Dispatch. You may ask why this was important to us. The answer is that over our many years of business experience, we have found newsletters to be an effective way of benefiting our economic base, while at the same time promoting our company.
These newsletters do contain some "advertising." So if that offends you, you can unsubscribe to the Dispatch as easily as turning off your television.
 Unsubscribe to the Dispatch.
In 1984, I went to work as EVP of Operations for CFI Management Services, a small forms and compliance company in Portland, Oregon. During the following 16 years we turned CFI into a public company, growing from approximately 8 to 1200 employees. The primary fuel for this growth was the creation in 1985 of Laser Pro®, a software product we literally invented that delivers legally compliant, dynamic loan document forms. In 2000, we sold Laser Pro and CFI to Harland Financial Solutions.
We would never have been in a position to create Laser Pro, if we didn't have a loyal customer base of financial institutions. CFI was created on the concept of being a head office for community banks. The one service that took off was our forms and compliance program that we was supported by a monthly newsletter called "Compliance News," first issued in 1978. Compliance News contained timely compliance news and articles from our staff and network of lawyers, including our primary outside counsel, Matt Chapman, who later became our Chairman and President.
Our eDocs-Express General Manager, Loren Wilson was the long-time Compliance News editor.
We knew how important "Compliance News" was to our clients, because if an issue was late, They certainly let us know about it.
We trust the Dispatch will have similar success and value to our readers. It's much easier and affordable today with email to deliver newsletters and to forward them to your associates. We encourage you to do so. If want to distribute or reuse any of our articles, you may do so unless we specifically note restrictions in a particular article.
So enjoy the Dispatch and if there are any subjects you'd like us to cover, simply recommend a subject for a future issue of the Dispatch.
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News and Solutions from eDocs-Express
Code of Federal Regulations ("CFR"). Have you ever wondered where to find all those rules that the federal government keeps promulgating and wanting you to comply with?
Try looking in the Code of Federal Regulations and the Federal Register.
View the CFR online.
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Be sure to read Bob Jett's article on
Understanding Different Types of Loan Collateral. When we designed Laser Pro®, we spent a lot of time learning about loan collateral for every state in the country.
Learn about collateral types and how we organized them in Laser Pro to properly document loans.
Be sure to read Bob Jett's article on
"Understanding Collateral Types."
Did You Miss the First Two Issues of the Dispatch? If you did, you can visit the eDocs-Express Lending Center on our web site to view past issues.
eDocs-Express Lending Center
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News from the Commercial Lending World
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The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. In Washington we know that the word "reform" usually just means change. Is Congress talking about meaningful reform or just more change?
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The banking and credit card industry for the past several years has been pushing proposed legislation that would make it more difficult for consumers to file for Chapter 7 relief, a form of bankruptcy where debtors get total relief from debts and creditors get little, if any, repayments. With Republican control of both houses and the presidency, it appears things are about to change. On March 10th, the Senate by a vote of 75-24 passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. If the bill passes the House, President Bush will certainly sign it, and sometime later this year, it would become law.
Proposed changes are intended to make it more difficult for consumers to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Changes include requiring individuals to seek budget and credit counseling during the six months before filing for bankruptcy. Also, the changes would make it difficult for individuals to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy if their household income is greater than the median household income in their state. And then, they can only keep assets allowed under their state's laws if they have lived there at least two years.
Currently it is not uncommon for debtors to move to states where the law shields more of their assets. Bankruptcy law allows bankruptcy petitioners to opt for state schedules in determining what personal assets they are entitled to keep. In legal matters, this is called "forum-shopping."
The Enron bankruptcy is a good example of forum-shopping. Enron, prior to its 2001 collapse, had 7,500 employees in its Houston headquarters, but filed for bankruptcy in New York where it had a small, 57-employee subsidiary. The Texas Attorney General unsuccessfully asked the bankruptcy court to transfer the case back to Texas.
Since over 70 percent of bankruptcy filings are Chapter 7, the bill's proponents expect that more people facing bankruptcy will have to opt for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, where individuals and creditors agree to court-imposed plans that require some or all debts to be repaid over a three to five year period.
Critics of the proposed bill claim it needlessly increases costs, and creates barriers for hard-working honest Americans who get hit with large, uninsured medical costs. Others claim this bill does little to close loopholes for the wealthier bankrupts who can still exclude from their income their payments for luxury cars and expensive homes. Others want concessions for workers who lose their jobs and retirement assets due to the bankruptcy of their employer.
We'll keep track of this important subject for lender but in the meantime, here are a few web sites you may want to visit:
"American Bankruptcy Institute"
"The Bankruptcy Site"
"US Senate Judiciary Committee"
"NAFCU"
"US Chamber of Commerce"
"Bills in the US House of Representatives"
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eDocs-Express LLC
5666 La Ribera Street
Livermore, CA 94550-2501
925-245-4880
www.edocs-express.com ¤ sales@edocs-express.com
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