WASHINGTON — Helping Veterans and their families stay in their homes is a top priority at VA. Over the past year, we’ve been able to help more than 145,000 Veterans and their families retain their homes and avoid foreclosure. Even in the dynamic housing market of the last several years, rates of foreclosures of VA-backed mortgages are among the lowest in the country. And at the same time, we know that there are still Veterans struggling to make their payments.
To ensure these Veterans can stay in their homes, we are taking two steps:
- We are calling on mortgage servicers to pause foreclosures of VA-guaranteed loans through May 31, 2024. During this pause we will work with servicers on workable home retention solutions for Veterans; and
- We are extending the COVID-19 Refund Modification program through May 31, 2024. This program is aimed at helping Veterans and their families keep their homes by allowing VA to purchase a portion of the loan, creating a non-interest bearing second mortgage. Simultaneously, the mortgage servicer will modify the loan to make it current and work with Veterans to ensure the new payment is affordable. It’s important to note that in a rising interest rate environment, the modified payment amount could increase, and loss mitigation options may vary by servicers.
By pausing foreclosures and extending the COVID-19 Refund Modification program, we can continue assisting Veterans with their loans while we launch our newest home retention option, the VA Servicing Purchase (VASP) program. Through VASP, VA will purchase defaulted VA loans from mortgage servicers, modify the loans, and then place them in the VA-owned portfolio as direct loans. This will empower us to work with Veterans experiencing severe financial hardship to adjust their loans – and their monthly payments – so they can keep their homes.
We want every Veteran with a loan to know that VA is here to help – and we encourage any Veteran who is struggling with making their payments to visit the VA Housing Assistance website or contact their servicer to understand available home retention options. We have loan technicians working with Veterans to help them stay in their homes, including discussing available home retention options such as repayment plans, special forbearance, loan modification, and more. And we will continue to actively review our portfolio of loans and work with loan servicers to do everything in our power to keep all Veterans and survivors with a VA-guaranteed mortgage in their homes.
Look for more information on the VA home loans website.
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