On May 3, 2022, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) will require lenders to use a Supplemental Consumer Information Form (SCIF) as part of the application process for loans that will be sold to the Enterprises. The purpose of the SCIF is to collect information about the borrower’s language preference, if any, and on any homebuyer education or housing counseling the borrower received, so lenders can better understand borrower needs during the home buying process.
Specifically, the changes will require lenders to present the SCIF questions to borrowers and to report any data collected from the SCIF to the Enterprise purchasing the loan. Lenders will be required to adopt these changes and reporting requirements for loans with application dates on or after March 1, 2023. Response by borrowers to the preferred language question in the SCIF will remain voluntary.
The final SCIF will be available via Mortgage Translations later this Summer. Until then, an interim version of Form 1103, with a 5/2022 date, is available in six different languages.
Remember, when the Uniform Residential Mortgage Application was revised in 2018, a language preference question was added to an interim version of the form, but was later dropped. Now it is back again.