Property Preservation
Property preservation crews secure and maintain vacant and bank-owned homes for mortgage servicers, investors and asset managers. The work runs on the client’s rules, and those rules center on the same things this site covers: secure doors, regular inspections and protection from the weather.
What servicer rules have required
- HUD (FHA-insured loans). HUD’s Mortgagee Letter 2016-02 required the mortgagee (the lender or its servicer) to secure all exterior doors, to rekey or replace the locks once a property was found vacant or abandoned, to set every lock to one random key code after the foreclosure sale, and to inspect vacant properties every 25 to 35 days. It barred bracing, nailing shut or damaging windows, allowed boarding in limited cases such as when the local authority requires it, and required the property to be secured and, where needed, winterized before conveyance (handing the property over) to HUD.
- Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae’s Servicing Guide (sections dated 2021 and 2023) requires a property inspection every calendar month, 20 to 35 days apart, while a loan is 90 or more days delinquent, and immediate arrangements to protect a vacant property from vandalism and the elements.
These are examples. Requirements change and differ by investor, loan type and state, so work from your client’s current guidelines and the latest version of each guide.
An example
This is an illustration, not a customer story.
A preservation company covers a rural county for an asset manager. One property is a vacant house with a side door, a front door and a basement walkout; the client’s work order calls for securing the property and inspecting it monthly.
- Initial secure. The crew completes the client-required lock change on every door and documents it with photos.
- Extra hardware. Where the client allows added hardware, the crew mounts an InvinciBolt Lock on the door most visible from the road and locks it from outside. Each other door keeps a lock that opens from inside. The InvinciBolt key goes into the property lockbox with the client-coded keys.
- Monthly visits. On each inspection, the inspector unlocks the InvinciBolt Lock first, keeps its key while inside, checks the house and relocks it on the way out.
- Conveyance or sale. Before the house is conveyed or sold, the crew removes the InvinciBolt Lock, patches the frame and reinstalls the coded lockset the client requires.
Before you add it to a property
- Install it only after the client has confirmed the property is vacant and authorized securing it. If anything suggests someone still lives there or keeps belongings there, don’t install it, and report it to the client.
- Check that your client’s guidelines allow added exterior hardware, and that the InvinciBolt key doesn’t conflict with a required key code.
- Keep it to one door of the building; every other exterior door must still open from inside.
- Add the unlock-first, relock-last steps to the property’s access notes for inspectors, agents and other vendors: Keys, Lockboxes and Access.
- Remove it before anyone occupies the property: Safe Use and Property Access.
For the full inspection and winter routine, see the Vacant Property Checklist and How to Winterize a Vacant House.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Mortgagee Letter 2016-02, Update of Preservation and Protection (P&P) Requirements (February 5, 2016)
- Fannie Mae Servicing Guide, D2-2-10, Requirements for performing property inspections (May 10, 2023), and E-3.2-12, Performing property preservation during foreclosure proceedings (July 14, 2021)
