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Fannie Mae Updates Reverse Mortgage Policies

Fannie maeFannie Mae [1] will begin to assume responsibility for ground rents, co-op fees and assessments, and property taxes “for certain properties in Fannie Mae’s REO inventory,” according to a recent update [2] to the GSE’s Reverse Mortgage Loan Servicing Manual’s section on property management.

The update is an extension of a 2017 rule in which Fannie Mae accepted responsibility to pay property taxes for acquired properties with a foreclosure sale date or final acceptance of an executed Mortgage Release occurring on or after July 1, 2017, for reverse mortgage loans. According to the update, Fannie Mae will now accept responsibility for all acquired properties in REO inventory including acquired properties with a foreclosure or Mortgage Release date before July 1, 2017.

On Reverse Mortgage Daily [3], Celink [4] VP of Foreclosure Kevin Paperd discussed how the update will improve efficiency for servicers.

“Including all acquired properties and changing the effective date allows Celink to gain operational efficiencies on Fannie Mae’s portfolio and gain consistency in the process,” said Paperd.

The effective date for these update is October 1, 2018. As of October 1, Fannie Mae will assume responsibility for property taxes, ground rents, co-op fees and assessments for all acquired properties without regard to the foreclosure sale or Mortgage Release date. This includes HOA and condo association fees.

Under the new update, Fannie notes that they “also may request the servicer to perform some property management functions that usually would be assigned to a broker, agent, or property management company.”

The update continues: “However, all repair and marketing costs involved in the disposition of the property must be approved by Fannie Mae.”

Additionally, the update states that Fannie Mae may contact servicers to obtain information about any applicable property insurance policy and carriers and any recent property inspections completed by the servicer. Servicers are required to provide the requested information within three business days.

For questions and to learn more, call Fannie Mae’s Single-Family Servicer Support Center at 1- 800-2FANNIE (1-800-232-6643). For the complete Reverse Mortgage Loan Servicing Manual update, click here. [5]