At the direction of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) will be making specific modifications to the Uniform Residential Loan Application (URLA) form. As a result, FHFA and the GSEs are postponing the February 1, 2020 mandatory compliance date of the URLA form and Automated Underwriting System (AUS) datasets to allow time for the industry to implement these modifications. A new effective date has not been set.
In June, we reported that at the direction of the FHFA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had postponed the optional use period for the redesigned URLA form and corresponding datasets which was to begin on July 1, 2019. The previously issued July 1, 2019 optional use and the February 1, 2020 mandatory use dates were set after the initial effective date of January 1, 2018 was postponed.
The official announcement states the following modifications will be made to the URLA:
- The following questions will be removed from the redesigned URLA form. Instead, a voluntary consumer information form, which will not be part of the URLA form, will be developed to collect this information.
- The Language Preference question (Borrower Information, Section 1a.)
- The Homeownership Education and Housing Counseling question (Lender Loan Information, Section L5.)
- In the Borrower Information, Section 6: Acknowledgments and Agreements, the statement on “Use and Sharing of Information” will be revised to address specific uses of borrower data.
- The Military Service question (Borrower Information, Section 1a.) will be moved to a new section adjacent to Section 7: Demographic Information.
- Minor edits for consistency and usability will be made throughout the URLA form.
We’ll keep you posted on the new effective date once it is released.