Exibit A - Lien Release Recording PWS Draft.docx

EXHIBIT A

PERFORMANCE WORK STATEMENT (PWS) FOR E-RECORDING AND NON-E-RECORDING LIEN RELEASES RECORDING SERVICES

USDA RURAL DEVELOPMENT

1. OBJECTIVE

1.1 The objective of this contract is for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Rural Development mission area (the “Client”), to complete Recording Management Services of lien releases for eligible counties in all 50 States and all Territories. The mission is to have the contractor ensure releases are recorded, either through an electronic vendor or through another means accepted by the recording entity (i.e. Register of Deeds Office, etc.).

2. BACKGROUND

2.1 USDA Rural Development provides direct and guaranteed loans to eligible applicants for family housing properties and municipal facilities. In support of these programs, Rural Development requires the services of qualified contractor to provide Recording Services (hereinafter “Services”), and other deliverables in accordance with the terms and conditions of this Contract. Use of recording system, including electronic recording where permitted, allows the United States Department of Agriculture, Rural Development SFH and Community Programs to establish an account for the purpose of recording real estate lien releases as needed.

3. DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES

3.1 Where applicable, the Contractor shall provide the access to e-recording system and other means to record liens where e-recording is not accepted, XXX users, training, support, and personnel necessary to perform the Recording services. The vendor must be able to accept documents electronically from USDA Rural Development that it will forward to the appropriate County or State Recorder’s Office for filing, or by other means where electronic recording is not accepted. Documents must be sent for filing within two business days of receipt of the request from Rural Development. The vendor must have an online mechanism to show Rural Development that the document was filed. Once the lien release is transmitted to the county recorder's office or other applicable state or county government office, a notification shall be sent to the USDA user providing the status of the recording; for example, sent, received (including the file number), or rejected. The Contractor shall maintain a copy of the recorded lien information.

3.2 Deliver a current list to the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR)(s) of states and counties in which the Contractor is authorized to e-record electronic liens. Continue to monitor and add more counties as they become available. Once additional counties are available for e-recording, the Contractor shall notify the COR(s).

3.3 Assign a separate login identification (ID) and password for approximately XXX USDA users. Login IDs must contain a symbol or letter to differentiate USDA users. The contractor will assist with new user accounts and password resets as needed.

3.4 Recording services under an Application Service Provider (ASP) or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model designed to receive data, e-record with recording jurisdiction, manage payments from jurisdictions, and return data and recorded images to designated systems through system integration. The e-recording services should not require specialized hardware or software. The e- recording services should be accessible by any Windows personal computer with a broadband connection through a modern Internet browser, i.e., Microsoft Internet Explorer or Google Chrome. The Contractor shall efficiently integrate with all recoding jurisdiction software systems. The documents shall be encrypted and sent securely to the jurisdictions

3.5 An easy-to-use, user interface of standard services for the creation, submission, fee transmission, administration and recording of all property documents provided by the USDA users. The Interface should, at a minimum, display the following data fields and any other data appropriate to receive, submit and track a recorded document: Federal District, County, Package Name, Court Number, uploaded document filenames and type (lien or lis pendens), Grantors, Grantees, Execution Date, any state Exemption Reasons, Number of Assignments, Number of Releases, indication that document is recordable, and the estimated fees. Additional features shall include the ability to download, print, submit and discard uploaded documents

3.6 Proactive support services, including training and education, consultation, deployment, a customer-service help desk that is available to all users in all time zones, including Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Alaska, Hawaii, and Guam, and other support services as needed.

· The Contractor shall provide the Government with a link to register for training sessions. The training should cover all aspects of e-recording to include logging into the e-recording system, navigating various menus, adding a county, creating and submitting a package, adding and submitting documents, printing documents, fixing and resubmitting a rejected package, finding previously recorded documents, account management utility, adding new user accounts, password length and character requirements, and changing passwords.

· A customer-service help desk to assist in answering questions by the individual users within USDA. The help desk shall accommodate all time zones including Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Alaska, Hawaii, and Guam.

3.7 Auditing of historical use is available and viewable; audit will include a status date for sent, received, rejected, recorded. USDA Rural Development, Single Family Housing and Community Programs will be responsible for creation of documents in recordable form and submission to the counties. Documents eligible for e-recording may be submitted through e-recording and returned electronically to the USDA Rural Development e-recording account. USDA Rural Development, Single Family Housing and Community Programs will be responsible for submitting documents in paper format to counties that do not accept e-recording.

3.8 The vendor will provide an invoice to Rural Development for each set of documents successfully e-recorded and/or filed to request payment and supporting reports. The invoice will include the reference documents name as stated at the request from USDA Rural Development, county where the document was filed, and identifying invoice number provided by the vendor, and the fee for service provided.

3.9 The recording fee will be included in the vendor’s invoice to Rural Development. Vendor will pay the applicable recording fees and include the cost in their invoice to USDA Rural Development. Vendor will pay the applicable recording fees to the county up front and execute the recordings and include the cost in the invoice to Rural Development.

3.10 The vendor will furnish a monthly billing summary to Rural Development listing payments they have received and any outstanding unpaid invoices.

4. NONPAYMENT FOR UNAUTHORIZED WORK

4.1 No payments will be made for any unauthorized supplies or services, or for any unauthorized changes to the work specified herein. This includes any services performed by the Contractor of his own volition or at the request of an individual other than a duly appointed Contracting Officer. Only a duly appointed Contracting Officer is authorized to change the specifications, terms, and/or conditions of this contract.

5. INSPECTION AND ACCEPTANCE (FEB 1988)

5.1 (a) The Contractor shall tender for acceptance only those items that conform to the requirements of this contract. The Government reserves the right to inspect or test any supplies or services that have been tendered for acceptance. The Contracting Officer or the Contracting Officer's Representative are duly authorized representative will inspect and accept the supplies and/or services to be provided under this contract. The Government may require re-performance of nonconforming services at no increase in contract price.

5.2 (b) Inspection and acceptance will be performed by USDA Rural Development, TBD.

6. GOVERNMENT’S RIGHTS

6.1 The rights of the Government and remedies described in this section are in addition to all other rights and remedies set forth in these documents. Specifically, the Government reserves its rights under the Terms and Conditions clause; reference FAR Clause 52.212-

4. Any deductions reflect the reduced value of services performed under the contract. The Contractor shall not be relieved of full performance of the services hereunder. The Government may modify the type and frequency of inspection of items.

7. DELIVERIES OR PERFORMANCE

7.1 The period of performance for this contract is 12 months.

8. INSPECTION AND ACCEPTANCE

8.1 Final inspection and acceptance of work performed, reports, and other deliverables will be performed by the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR)

9. TYPE OF AWARD

9.1 The type of contract is TBD.

10. FUNDING

10.1 Dependent on 9. TBD.

11. PLACE OF PERFORMANCE

11.1 The contractor will provide services to the USDA in all 50 states and U.S. Territories.

12. DAYS/HOURS OF PERFORMANCE

12.1 The contractor shall provide service for all Agency services time zones (i.e. EST, MST, PST, AST, HST, and Guam/Northern Marianas which fall, under Chamorro Standard Time). This should likely align w/Servicing Office customer call in timeframes.

13. GOVERNMENT HOLIDAYS

13.1 The following Government holidays are normally observed by Government personnel: New Years’ Day, Martin Luther King’s Birthday, Presidential Inauguration Day (Metropolitan DC area only), Presidents’ Day , Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and any other day designated by Federal Statute, Executive Order, and/or Presidential Proclamation, or any other kind of administrative leave resulting from such as acts of God (i.e., hurricanes, snow storms, tornadoes, etc.). In addition, the Government may close for other unexpected events (i.e., Presidential funerals or any other unanticipated occurrence).

14. CONTRACT ADMINISTRATION

14.1 CONTRACTING OFFICER (CO)

14.2 The Contracting Officer has the authority to enter, administer, and or terminate orders, and make related determinations and findings on behalf of the government. They are the only individual who can legally bind the government and change the pricing, quantity, quality, place of performance, delivery schedule, or any other terms and conditions of the order, or direct the accomplishment of effort which goes beyond the scope of the statement of work (SOW) in the order. The Contracting Officer for this order is: CO TBD

14.3 Contract administration will be performed by the CO. The Contracting Officer shall be notified in writing of any change which will have an impact on ordering under this Contract.

14.4 When, in the opinion of the Contractor, the Government Representative request effort outside the existing scope of the contract, the Contractor shall promptly notify the Contracting Officer in writing. The Contractor shall take no action under such direction until the Contracting Officer has issued a modification to the contract or has otherwise resolved the issue.

15. INVOICE AND BILLING INSTRUCTIONS

15.1 Inquires relating to payment may be directed to the Contracting Officer.

16. PAYMENTS

16.1 All payments under this Contract will be handled in accordance with FAR 52.232-1 Payments (APR 1984).

17. EXTENT OF OBLIGATION

17.1 USDA Rural Development is obligated only to the extent of authorized purchases made under the Contract and shall be acted on with a Standard Form 1449 Solicitation/ Contract/ Order for Commercial Items signed by the Contracting Officer. Failure to comply with this provision may result in termination.

18. NON-PERSONAL SERVICES

Pursuant to FAR 37.1, no personal services shall be performed under any order request issued under this Contract. No Contractor employee will be directly supervised by the Government. If the Contractor believes any Government communication has been given or action taken it would create a personal services relationship between the Government and any Contractor employee, the Contractor shall promptly notify the CO of this communication.

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