Summary: The Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) uses standard asset management and disposition agreement contractors to manage and dispose of nonperforming loans, those that are at least 60 days delinquent. Before contractors can dispose of loans, however, they need documents contained in the asset files for loans assigned to them. GAO found that RTC had not effectively managed asset file transfers to contractors. Timeliness in providing files was a major problem. In some cases, even after lengthy searches for missing files, RTC waited from five months to nearly two years to withdraw the loans from contractors' portfolios. On the contracts GAO reviewed, contractors received nearly $450,000 in management fees for loans that they could neither manage nor dispose of. Although RTC's general records management procedures require field site managers to notify records managers whenever files are transferred from a thrift to another location, such as an RTC officer or loan service, this requirement was not consistently met. As a result, records managers could not always readily find asset files needed by contractors.
