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Petition to Administration Seeks to Eliminate HARP Cutoff Date

While the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) has undergone some tweaks and changes to broaden eligibility, a petition is seeking to make the program available to more underwater homeowners and to allow homeowners to refinance under the program more than once.

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The petition specifically states, ""We Petition the Obama Administration to: Make a formal request to the FHFA to eliminate the securitization cut off date for HARP eligibility and allow re-HARPing.""

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Currently, HARP 2.0 has a cutoff date and only allows mortgages sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac on or before May 31, 2009, to be eligible for the program.

The petition was opened January 9, 2013, on the ""We the People"":https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-formal-request-fhfa-eliminate-securitization-cut-date-harp-eligibility-and-allow-re-harping/BlPYbvZw?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl White House website. As of January 21, the petition has received more than 800 signatures. The goal is to reach 25,000 signatures by February 8, 2013, in order for the petition to be reviewed by the Obama administration and receive a response.

A release on the petition explained FHFA's acting director Edward DeMarco has authority to extend or eliminate the eligibility cutoff date and to remove the one time use limit for the program, which is why the petition is calling on the Obama administration to make a formal request to FHFA.

So far, about ""1.8 million underwater homeowners"":http://dsnews.comarticles/harp-refis-maintain-strong-pace-and-continue-to-attract-underwater-bororwers-2012-12-20 have been able to refinance their mortgage through HARP. According to ""data from CoreLogic"":http://dsnews.comarticles/corelogic-100k-homeowners-rose-above-of-negative-equity-in-q3-2013-01-17, there are about 10.7 million underwater mortgages as of the third quarter of 2012.

When HARP was revamped in March 2012, the 125 percent loan-to-value ratio cap was removed from the program, which allowed more deeply underwater homeowners to refinance.