It’s not uncommon for a mortgage lender to conduct business with a client who’s interested in purchasing property in the U.S., but their paperwork is in another language. It’s in fact very common in the banking industry. Banks offer several types of services that foreign nationals use quite often – mortgage lending being one that is very high on the list.
Mortgage lenders can agree that the amount of paperwork required to issue a mortgage loan is not only plentiful, but it contains very sensitive language that if not clearly understood by the lender, can negatively impact the loan issuance process. That’s where translation services come in. And in fact, the need for translation is growing. IBISWorld, a market intelligence company, states that over the past five years, the U.S. translation services industry has grown by 1.3 percent.
LEP mortgage borrower population expected to rise
According to the 2017 Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) report, the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014 national projections anticipate that by 2060, the U.S. population’s share of foreign nationals will grow to 19 percent from approximately 13 percent today. This growth makes it reasonable to expect that limited English proficiency (LEP) consumers will constitute a growing share of mortgage borrowers in the coming decades.
Mortgage documents generally in need of translation
Lenders require several documents from borrowers, and it’s crucial that they understand what’s written in them. The most commonly translated mortgage documents include loan applications, pre-approval letters, proof of assets documents (such as bank statements), good faith estimates, truth-in-lending disclosure statements, settlement statements, and deeds. Each of these documents is considered legal documents, which means that to avoid legal troubles, proper and accurate translation of them is crucial. Simply using an online translation tool does not suffice because such tools are not built to handle such robust and jargon-packed documents.
TransForma is very familiar with and fully equipped to translate documents involved in the mortgage lending process. If you’re in need of translation services for mortgage documents, contact us at info@transformaonline.com, and we’ll be happy to help.