Democratic Senators rebuke FHFA’s changes to URLA

Federal Issues FHFA U.S. Senate URLA Mortgages GSE Fannie Mae Freddie Mac

On October 16, 19 Democratic Senators wrote to FHFA Director, Mark Calabria, requesting the agency to reconsider its decision to remove the language preference question and housing counseling agency information from the redesigned Uniform Residential Loan Application (URLA), which was originally set to take effect on February 1, 2020. As previously covered by InfoBytes, in August, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (GSEs) announced, at the direction of the FHFA, that mandatory use of the redesigned URLA will no longer begin on February 1, 2020. Additionally, the GSE’s noted that FHFA is requiring the removal of the language preference question. The question, along with the home ownership education and housing counseling question, will now be a part of a separate voluntary consumer information form. In response, the Senators argue that the decision to remove the language preference question is arbitrary and could leave “loan servicers without basic communication information about their borrowers” as a voluntary information form may not be used or may not travel with the loan documents. The Senators assert that the language information is “vital” to policymakers and the planned revisions to the URLA were “an important step toward increasing language access throughout the mortgage market.” The letter requests that Director Calabria respond to their concerns by November 18.