WASHINGTON—The Federal Housing Finance Agency released redesigned Uniform Residential Loan Application (URLA) forms that take into account CUNA’s concerns brought forth in a July visit with the agency, the trade association reported.
CUNA has advocated for removing the URLA requirement that lenders inquire about the language preference of borrowers, citing several compliance and legal concerns. Fif
ty-five members of Congress sent a letter to the FHFA, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with similar concerns.
With Tuesday’s release of the new loan application, credit unions and other lenders will have time to appropriately update their loan origination systems, CUNA noted.
Said FHFA Director Mel Watt: "Although final implementation of the new loan application is still more than a year away, and the application must still undergo ‘safe harbor’ review by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, we anticipate that publication of the redesigned form now will give the industry ample time to analyze and prepare for its use in 2018.”
NAFCU, CUNA and six other financial trades wrote Watt this June urging against adding a language-preference question to the URLA until compliance and legal concerns had been addressed. Watt has said that his agency will not add a language-preference question to its Uniform Residential Loan Application now but will take other steps to determine how best to gather such data.
Carrie Hunt, NAFCU’s executive vice president of government affairs and general counsel, said NAFCU and its members greatly welcome the FHFA’s decision to do a more thorough study. “We appreciate Director Watt’s openness on this issue and look forward to continuing to work with him and the agency as it seeks to address the needs of limited-English-proficiency consumers,” Hunt said.