Senators ask the VA to stop needless foreclosures on veterans
During the pandemic, many took a COVID forbearance to defer paying mortgages in order to keep their homes despite their loss of income. Many homeowners understood that they would simply have their owed payments placed at the end of their payment timeline. Veterans were among those who took advantage of this program. However, many of these veterans were told to either pay what they owe in one payment, or refinance under higher rates. Senators have stepped in and asked the VA to stop the foreclosure process that many of these veterans ended up facing.
From NPR:
The forbearance program was set up by Congress after the pandemic hit in order to let people who suffered a loss of income skip mortgage payments for 6 or 12 months, and then have an affordable way to start paying their mortgage again.
But in October 2022, the VA ended the part of the program that allowed homeowners an affordable way to get current on their loans again, which has left many veterans facing foreclosure. The VA has a new program to replace it, but says it will take four or five months to implement.
That’s too late to help many of the 6,000 people with VA loans who had COVID forbearances and are currently in the foreclosure process. 34,000 more are delinquent according to the data firm ICE Mortgage Technology.
“In the meantime, tens of thousands of veterans and servicemembers are left with no viable options to get back on track with payments and save their homes,” the senators wrote.
The group of senators includes Tester, who chairs the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, and Brown who chairs the Banking Committee. They asked the VA, “to implement an immediate pause on all VA loan foreclosures where borrowers are likely to be eligible for VA’s new…program until it is available and borrowers can be evaluated to see if they qualify.”
The heart of the problem is that many homeowners were told before they entered into a mortgage forbearance that the missed payments would be moved to the back end of their loan term, so they wouldn’t get stuck owing them in a big lump sum. They were told they’d be able to simply return to making their regular monthly mortgage payment when they got back on their feet financially.
NPR has the rest of this story.
Category: Veterans in the news, Veterans Issues, Veterans' Affairs Department
Sh*t like this is 1. why my grandfather stayed away from the VA, and 2. why I can’t blame him.
When my wife and I purchased our current home we applied for a VA-backed loan. Our mortgage broker did a lot of work to get us a payment we could afford and the loan was made by a company called Freedom Mortgage. They specialize in VA loans for veterans. We’ve had them for 7 years, they lowered our rate 3 times during that period, we could not be happier having them as our mortgage company! Highly recommend!
Promise one thing, stick them in the a$$ with something bad.
DOVA’s version of bait and switch.
VA…..wears a friendly face, but isn’t. (PTUI!)
Man, fuck the VA.
I’ve had a generaly good experience with the VA. Some Docs were genuinely concerned with my issues. However, I absolutely do not trust them.
They told me the stuff that happened to me didn’t actually happen, which was weird because it did. I didn’t see any of them there when it was happening either. Then they said it didn’t happen when I said it happened. So I asked which is it? did it not happen? Or did it not happen when I said it happened? These are two completely different things….
Their name is not Obiwan Kenobi.
I feel ya.
After many visits and much testing…
VA Neurologist: Your symptoms are those of Multiple Sclerosis.
Me: So I have MS?
VA Neurologist: No, that’s not what we’re calling it. Maybe it’s all in your head?
Me: Fuck you very much, Doc. I’m outta here.
Just the billions of $s that were scammed, and will never be collected, from the “Chinese Communist Originated Viral Infecting Disease” of 2019 scamdemic monies would prolly pay off any past due amounts. Maybe call them all “Student Loans”? Plenty of $ to feed, transport, house, medicate, and supply walking around $ to illegals…and to send to other countries to secure their borders…or fight their wars.
Have we hit the “two weeks to flatten the curve” and achieve herd immunity yet?
I absolutely was aware of the lump payment requirement, but only because I asked my mortgage company. Fortunately I did not take it, but thousands of vets and tens of thousands of regular families did, and now foreclosures rates are on the rise.
I still don’t know why giving all of our money to the banks is better than having high inflation? I mean it’s not better for me…. It might be better for the banks maybe…. But I am not a bank…. I must be confused about all this.
“Many homeowners understood…”
Many homeowners are not very bright. If they didn’t get it in writing, and they obviously didn’t, they didn’t get it at all. So much for the supposedly higher standards of the volunteer Army.
Worse than “most,” too– that many (like less, way less, than half) eh?
I had a similar problem regarding a non-VA backed mortgage around 2014. My wife and I got behind in our payments because she was short (less than $100) on a single payment and the mortgage company (called CENLAR) then refused to cash any further monthly payments we sent following that.
They offered to defer the “missed” payments to the end of the loan – which we agreed to – and then proceeded to send us bills saying we had 45 days to pay off the entire loan or face foreclosure. We kept inquiring why our loan wasn’t being ‘moved to the right’ as promised and kept being told we needed to pay off the loan before that program could be available to us.
We finally had to just sell the house at a huge loss just to avoid losing everything and having that credit bomb hanging over us for the next decade.
If you ever learn your mortgage has been sold to CENLAR, refi immediately with another company, no matter how high the rate may be! You will be better off in the long run! (Google “CENLAR horror stories”!)