The Federal Housing Administration announced the completion of its revised and streamlined loan-level certification form required from lenders when originating FHA-insured forward mortgages and reverse mortgages.
Details were provided in Mortgagee Letter 2020-49, which FHA published this afternoon.
The revised form, officially called the HUD Form 92900-A, Addendum to Uniform Residential Loan Application is mandated by FHA and must have signatures from the underwriter and/or other lender representative, as well as the borrower. The revised HUD Form 92900-A may be used by lenders immediately but is required for all FHA single family mortgages with case numbers assigned on and after March 22, 2021.
“The new loan-level certification form is the result of extensive work performed by FHA over the last year to assess the public and industry comments received on proposed drafts. The new certification is cleaner and clearer, which should go a long way toward alleviating the concerns with the previous form expressed by lenders over the years,” says Deputy Assistant Secretary for Single Family Housing Joe Gormley.
In a press release, HUD says the revised loan-level certification is the final piece of FHA’s promised reforms to reduce concerns about significant actions that could be taken against lenders for minor errors in underwriting. In October 2019, FHA announced a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Department of Justice that provided new ground rules for the appropriate application of the False Claims Act, versus other remedies that FHA can pursue to address underwriting defects with individual lenders.