The Scotsman Guide is reporting that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) will now require lenders that make FHA loans to ask for a mortgage applicant’s language preference. According to the report, lenders will be required to use the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Supplementary Consumer Information Form (SCIF) to collect a borrower’s language of choice for loan applications dated on or after Aug. 28, 2023. In addition, they say the new mandate follows the FHFA’s language preference collection requirement for lenders that sell loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which was enacted in March and proposed to codify as regulation in April.
“Borrowers may choose to provide all, some or none of the data requested on the form, which will be used to make mortgage information available in the languages that borrowers best understand. The requirement is another step in a recent FHA initiative to better inform borrowers with limited English proficiency (LEP). Earlier this month, the agency also launched a new language access webpage, which provides translations of key FHA documents in the five languages most commonly spoken by LEP households: Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese.”
Click here to read the full story at the Scotsman Guide.
