The responsibilities of home ownership and having a mortgage are demanding enough for the average consumer, but the process becomes increasingly more complicated for borrowers who are serving our country.
To help ease these hardships- which include job and relocation stress, along with time constraints- the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has written new mortgage protections for these consumers, which are now in place for military men and women.
Holly Petraeus, head of the CFPB’s military office said the new rules have come after the CFPB conducted nationwide listening sessions and heard stories from military families about poor mortgage servicing practices, inconsistent foreclosure practices and sloppy recordkeeping by lenders. These new rules will help military families struggling with a mortgage and those that just got orders requiring them to relocate.
Some of CFPB’s new rules include:
• Require a servicer to evaluate a borrower for all available options as soon as they receive an application for mortgage help.
• Servicers must have policies in place to ensure consistent and constant contact with borrowers.
• One of the big changes relates to what is known as dual-tracking. In the past, a member of the military struggling to make a mortgage payment might have been working on a potential loan modification at the same time their servicer was moving to foreclose on the home. This practice is now restricted under the new rules.
• Eliminate the issue of misplacing documents and other factors that make it hard for borrowers to get accurate and consistent answers regarding their mortgage.
• Mortgage servicers are now required to train their employees to be more readily able to answer questions for borrowers who run into trouble and must assign someone to help military borrowers to ensure a positive experience.
• In the past, service members had to apply multiple times for programs to help keep their homes. The new rules require mortgage servicers to evaluate a borrower who files a complete application for help for all the options that are available to that borrower. This will eliminate multiple rounds of applications.
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